The International Cricket Council (ICC) has imposed fines and demerit points on Pakistan’s Shaheen Afridi, Saud Shakeel, and Kamran Ghulam for their aggressive behavior during the tri-series match against South Africa.

Shaheen Afridi received a 25% match fee fine for breaching Article 2.12 of the ICC Code of Conduct, which prohibits inappropriate physical contact with players, umpires, match referees, or spectators during an international match. The incident occurred in the 28th over of South Africa’s innings, where Afridi deliberately obstructed batter Matthew Breetzke while he was completing a run. This led to physical contact and a heated verbal exchange between the two.

The ICC has been maintaining a strict stance on player conduct, as seen earlier when India’s Virat Kohli was fined 20% of his match fee and handed a demerit point for colliding with Australia’s Sam Konstas during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series.

Interestingly, while Kohli got a lot of flak for his action, Shaheen has hardly been criticised in Pakistan for his behaviour.

The tall fast bowler admitted after the match that he had been trying to rile up and disturb Breetzke for a while in the match but once it was over everything was forgotten and both shook hands.

In another incident, Shakeel and substitute fielder Ghulam were fined 10 percent of their match fees for celebrating too closely to batter Temba Bavuma following his run-out in the 29th over.

Both players were found guilty of breaching Article 2.5 of the Code, which relates to "using language, actions or gestures which disparage or which could provoke an aggressive reaction from a batter upon his/her dismissal during an International Match."

The ICC ruled that Shaheen had intentionally blocked Breetzke's path when he was taking a single and Saud and Ghulam induced in in the face celebrations when Bavuma was dismissed.