June 10, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 24, 1428

KARACHI, June 9: It seems the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has a habit of contravening its policy whenever it feels threatened by outside forces.

The latest example in this regard is the blatant violation of PCB’s policy for facilitating media coverage of Pakistan’s overseas matches.

This ‘controversial’ policy was implemented in Feb by the PCB specifically for the print media journalists with an aim to promote Pakistan cricket by ensuring ‘efficient’ and ‘good quality’ cricket reporting on foreign tours.

Through this policy, which was circulated to the media organisations throughout Pakistan, the PCB had planned to cover five tours this year – from the World Cup 2007 to Pakistan’s high-profile tour of India in November-December. The other trips under this scheme were or are Pakistan’s U-19 Australia tour, which ended in April, the U-19 trip to England next month and the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa this Sept.

Under this policy, the PCB is paying for the return air ticket plus daily allowances ranging between 500 to 2,000 US dollars, depending on the length of the ‘pleasure’ trip undertaken by such reporters.

But during last month’s hurriedly-arranged ODI series between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi, the PCB was left red-faced on several counts when it succumbed under pressure to appease the media by sending no less than 11 persons for the coverage of this non-sanctioned tour.

According to the investigations carried out by Dawn, a gentleman, who had virtually nothing to do whatsoever with cricket coverage, was obliged by PCB’s media department. Moreover, contrary to its policy, the PCB also entertained two personnel belonging to the electronic media.

Initially, the plan was to send them for the entire series but because of visa constraints, their departure was delayed until after the first match was completed. Upon arrival at the designated destination, a PCB senior official dished out $500 per person. This amount was to serve the purpose of settling the hotel bills as well as meeting other expenses.

The question is: how come Asif Azeem, a non-journalist gentleman who is actually a public relations officer at the Saddar Town UC in Karachi, managed to get the accreditation for the Abu Dhabi series in the first place?

The story is that two senior Karachi-based journalists helped Asif get accredited as a representative of a leading Urdu language cricket monthly published by a renowned cricket commentator. This again is contrary to the PCB policy since periodicals are not governed by it.

Asif, who also acts as a sports organiser and a part-time cricketer, made a fool of himself during the Abu Dhabi series. First of all, he was seldom seen at the media centre. But he showed his organisational skills by presenting shields and other ‘gifts’ to the dignitaries, including the PCB chairman.

Asif, reportedly, also accompanied the Pakistan team when it toured Sri Lanka last year for a series of two Tests and three One-day Internationals.

A senior official of PCB’s media department expressed his complete ignorance when someone asked him how come Asif was accommodated. “How would I know? Since his papers were in order, we had to oblige him!” was the prompt reply.

This is not the end of the story. During the recent World Cup, a couple of so-called journalists arrived in Barbados four days prior to the April 28 final through the generosity of the PCB.

But instead of covering the final, they left for London two days later after learning that their return flight was scheduled for May 5.