December 15, 2003	Monday	Shawwal 20, 1424

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TODAY, Shaharyar M.Khan, a career diplomat and former foreign secretary, is expected to take over as the 26th head of Pakistan Cricket Board from Gen.(retd) Tauqir Zia, who resigned for “personal reasons” ten days ago.

Soon after his appointment was officially announced on Tuesday last, Mr Khan, in a TV interview, made some candid observations about the deeds and “misdeeds” of his predecessor.

While he promised to carry on the good work initiated by the former chairman, Mr Khan promised to look into the criticism in the media as well by cricket lovers across the country over some controversial decisions taken by the outgoing management.

That is heartening. Thankfully Mr Khan realises that there were acts and decisions which did not augur well for Pakistan cricket. And there is no harm in informing the new chairman that such decisions and actions were quite a few.

To start from the beginning. When Tauqir was appointed as chairman on Dec 15, 1999 the PCB constitution had already been suspended by the then chief executive of Pakistan, who is also the patron of the board by virtue of his post. And ad hoc committee was running the show.

It was expected that after a “ breathing period” Tauqir would revive the constitution and the democratic setup of PCB. But he preferred to maintain status quo and adhocism. After sometime he decided to de-affiliate the regional cricket associations.

The third action was to hire a host of directors, advisers, general managers, managers and administrators on astronomical salaries and perks. So much so that at one stage (probably early last year) Tauqir himself lamented that the PCB was on the verge of bankruptcy.

He made this admission in light of the fact that most cricket playing nations were not ready to play in Pakistan for security reasons and the board was not earning anything. But he probably failed to realize that such princely spending would bankrupt even Microsoft Corporation.

Desperate and in panic, the former chairman agreed to play “away home series”, a concept never heard of and which would have in any case not generated the sort of money which PCB would have earned by playing at home grounds.

Instead of taking a firm stand against the countries who refused to come to Pakistan and fighting Pakistan’s case at the ICC Tauqir succumbed to the pressure from Australia and West Indies by agreeing to play in Sharjah and Colombo.

The decision not to hold matches at Karachi and Peshawar on the insistence of South Africa and New Zealand was yet another blunder. These decisions greatly harmed cricket and deprived thousands of Pakistanis of watching cricket at the grounds.

But the worst of all, were the growing cases of indiscipline during the last four years. Shoaib Akhtar alone was suspended twice by the ICC besides being warned several times. Instead of reprimanding him, the PCB went all out to pamper him.

The memory of players fighting, accusing and abusing each other during the 2003 World Cup is still fresh. Pakistan, for the first time failed to qualify for the second round in a World Cup tournament despite fielding a team that was rated as one of the best in many years.

The PCB did not take any action against those responsible for the South African debacle except temporarily dropping some of the senior players. Four of them are back in the team, two have decided to retire.

Team selection has always been a matter of criticism. But during Tauqir’s tenure the selectors played havoc with form and fitness of a number of senior players and destroyed careers of some very promising youngsters. Thankfully, Mr Khan realizes this problem and has hinted in his TV interview that he was aware of factors like relationships etc affecting fair selections.

Only last month the chairman of the selectors included Junaid Zia in the team for one of the one-dayers against New Zealand but had to drop him the very next day when Tauqir told him not to include his son. And one may remind readers that Junaid was not among the probables.

During the last four years(1999-2003) three sets of selection committee were tried by the former chairman. Unfortunately most of those assigned to select national teams lacked the experience, knowledge and integrity essential to build a strong and balanced combination.

The two selection committees — the first one headed by Wasim Bari and the second by Aamir Sohail — kept on experimenting with various combinations. Some of their selections backfired so badly that in the end they had to finally revert to the tried and tested combination which was thrown after the World Cup failure.

While the committee headed by Wasim Bari at least worked together and Bari had the courtesy of consulting the coach and the captain, Aamir ignored his own team .

Many, who have closely watched the workings of our cricket management in the past would recall that never before PCB was so much “top heavy” as now. The administrative expenditure(including salaries etc) alone is reported to be around Rs. 25 million a year.

The exact number of senior and junior executives is not known but a fair guess is that it is more than fifty. Mr Khan would hopefully look into it and see if there is any justification for such a large “army” of officials.