Young cricketer in Pakistan attempts suicide after being excluded from a domestic tournament

A young cricketer from the Qasimabad area of Hyderabad attempted suicide on Wednesday by cutting his wrist, a local media house reported. The family rushed the boy to the hospital in a critical condition, where he is being given medical care.

While the details of the incident are awaited, Shoaib's father told reporters that his son took the step after being left out of a tournament organised at the Niaz Stadium by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). The name of the tournament is also unknown, but many domestic tournaments are held under PCB each year.

This is not the first report of a domestic cricketer in Pakistan wanting to take away or take away his life. In 2018, former Pakistani cricketer Aamer Hanif's son, Mohammad Zaryab, committed suicide at his home in Karachi after being left out of an Under-19 team. As per Zaryab, the behaviour of the coaches led to his son's suicide.

In fact, there have also been several cricketers who committed suicide after playing international cricket. The list includes South Africa's Aubrey Faulkner, who played 25 Tests, New Zealand's Fen Cresswell, who featured in three Tests, Australia's Sidney Barnes, who played 13 Tests and Sri Lanka's Sunil Jayasinghe (two ODIs), among others.

In India, too, we've heard of a few domestic cricketers taking their own lives. In August 2020, 25-year-old Karan Tiwari, a local-level cricketer who bowled in the Mumbai Ranji Trophy nets, committed suicide by hanging himself at his house in Gokulnagar at Goregaon East. 

That same year, former Kerala cricketer M Suresh Kumar committed suicide at the age of 47, but the reason behind the drastic step was not cricket. Kumar played domestic cricket from 1991 to 2005 and worked with Indian Railways after retirement.