10 April 2004	Saturday	19 Safar 1425

KARACHI, April 9: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in an attempt to bolster its sagging image is to hire a public relations firm. The idea is the brain-child of two highly-paid "honourary" consultants who are old time buddies of PCB chairman. One of them was a marketing executive of a tobacco company and the other a career diplomat and former collegue of PCB chief.

Both consultants have impressed upon their "boss" that the PCB beset with controversies urgently needs to improve its image badly tarnished at home and abroad over the last couple of years due to a series of mind-boggling decisions defying logic and reasoning.

PCB maintaining the past practice and against its Chairman's own stated policy of transparency never advertised the job and last week invited country's four public relations firms at its headquarters in Lahore for presentations of their credentials.

Who will get this lucrative assignment is anybody's guess, but whether the lucky firm will be able to project the image of an organization which has been running on ad hoc basis for more than four years with no accountability, is yet another matter.