07 October 2004	Thursday	21 Shaban 1425

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KARACHI, Oct 6: Complimentary tickets for cricket matches? No way. They aren't being given out because none are available. It's a practice that has been done away with by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), so we are told.

Well, old habits die hard. For years the PCB has handed out complimentary tickets to the VIPs, their near and dear ones leaving genuine fans to queue up and pay for them.

During the high-profile India series this year, the fans suffered courtesy the PCB which doled out tickets worth millions of rupees, just to please the high and the mighty, their own friends and relatives.

PCB officials then claimed that from now on even the president of Pakistan will also have to buy tickets. In what turned out to be a big scam, the chairman Shaharyar M. Khan and the then chief executive Ramiz Raja were summoned by the Senate Standing Committee on Sports for questioning. The probe into this affair and other cricketing matters is still pending.

As if that ticket mess-up was not enough, the PCB is at it again, executing its traditional, tried and tested method of people pleasing. One of the beneficiaries of the complimentary tickets is Salahuddin Haider, an adviser to the Sindh Chief Minister.

The adviser felt offended by the "discourteous behaviour" of a senior PCB official Abbas Zaidi during his visit on Tuesday to the National Stadium. Zaidi's act required an apology from Shaharyar on Wednesday. "The offence was entirely unintentional and due to your exalted status not being known to officials who are not resident in Karachi."

For the adviser, six tickets were quickly dispatched. "I hope you have received the six tickets you wished to have on a complimentary basis," Shaharyar wrote in a letter addressed to the adviser and released to the press. Now is this not hypocrisy? Is it not a clear case of PCB deceiving the public? Surely Mr Shaharyar has some explaining to do.