04 June 2004	Friday	15 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

LAHORE, June 3: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB)'s advisory council, mainly comprising non-technocrats, will take several vital decisions in its meeting on Friday. It would be the second meeting of the council, since it was formed early this year.

The committee consists of former bureaucrat Moin Afzal, Gen Arif Hasan, educationist Shamim Khan, banker Ali Raza and lone technocrat and former great Test player Hanif Mohammad. There will be no representation of the city cricket association about which the council will finalise the domestic cricket structure.

The council will take decisions to start competitions at university and school levels. It will also analyse the performance of the Pakistan team in home series against India with the report of the team management. No member of the team management was summoned to appear before the council.

However, national selection committee chairman Wasim Bari is likely to attend to apprise the council about the decision he had taken to finalise the team. It may be mentioned here that Pakistan lost the Test series to India 2-1 and the ODIs 3-2.

The PCB, which had done various experiments with the domestic cricket, changing its format every year, now prepares it self to minimise the role of departments in the domestic cricket.

According to one proposal, the departments would only be allowed to play in the one-day competition. The departments have already expressed their concern over this decision and are trying to contact influential people to guide the board on this matter.

The board is emphasising the departments to sponsor a region team instead of fielding their own sides. The departments, however, are not ready to accept their new role saying it would not give them proper mileage.