May 18, 2006	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 19, 1427

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KARACHI, May 17: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has once again made mockery of its much trumpetted laid down policy of transparency and merit in hiring professionals.

The latest example of PCB’s U-turn has been the appointment of former Test cricketer Mudassar Nazar, who is not a qualified coach, as director of Lahore-based National Cricket Academy (NCA).

Ironically the former allrounder had also served as national team coach but was unceremoniously sacked while the team was competing in the Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka.

He has also the dubious distinction of having allegedly accused his own teammates of ball tampering.

As usual PCB advertised the post in national dailies for director NCA making it clear that only those individuals who have passed England and Wales Cricke Board (ECB) Level-3 course should apply for the position.

Those who applied for the job were former Pakistan captains Mushtaq Mohammad and Intikhab Alam as well as ex-Test cricketers Jalaluddin and Haroon Rashid. Incidentally Mushtaq, Jalal and Haroon Rashid are amongst the seven Pakistanis who have passed ECB Level-3 course.

Bearing in mind PCB’s track record on transparency and merit it came as no surprise when the board did not even bothered to invite Jalaluddin and Haroon Rashid for interview.

Only Mushtaq and Intikhab were interviewed for couple of minutes for the sake of so called transparency and merit.

The PCB chairman, when questioned by journalists during one of his frequent press conferences recently held in Karachi, had no answer to the selection of Mudassar Nazar in preference to such greats as Intikhab and Mushtaq under whom Pakistan won the World Cup in 1992 and reached the final in 1999 respectively.