KARACHI: After all the controversies surrounding the legitimacy of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman while Zaka Ashraf and Najam Sethi ‘shared’ the post alternatively through court orders, former board chief Shaharyar Mohammad Khan is expected to return unopposed for a second term in the hot seat.

The former foreign secretary, who also served as Pakistan ambassador as well as high commissioner, during a distinguished career between 1957 and 1994, is the only individual to file his nomination for the most sought after post of PCB chairman when the deadline expired on Friday (Aug 15) for Monday’s election.

According to the new board constitution the chairman could only be elected from the PCB’s board of governors that includes Shaharyar and Sethi. Both men were included in that group earlier this month by the acting chairman of the PCB, Mohammad Sair Ali, a retired judge.

To avoid unnecessary hassles, the PCB overhauled the structure of the governing board after multiple changes were made in the constitution in order to ensure the appointment of the chairman is done in a democratic way rather the previous practice when the chairman was always nominated by the board’s patron-in-chief.

Ironically Shaharyar won’t be the first elected chairman of the PCB. That ‘honour’ fell to Zaka who took over the helms of leadership in May 2013 but his election was subsequently deemed controversial by the Islamabad High Court. The government then stepped in when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in his capacity as the PCB patron, inducted Sethi as the interim chairman.

Thereafter both Sethi and his predecessor Zaka both found themselves embroiled in a long legal battle as they alternatively ruled the roost at the Gaddafi Stadium.

Shaharyar was the PCB chairman from December 2003 — after the then chief Lt Gen Tauqir Zia resigned following an almost four-year tenure — until October 2006 when he quit in the wake of The infamous ball-tampering Oval Test episode which saw Pakistan become the only side ever to forfeit a Test match while lodging their protest at Australian umpire Darrell Hair’s decision to award five penalty runs to England.

It was during the tenure of Shaharyar, who was also severely criticised for not being able to handle the erring players with a firm hand in the Oval Test fiasco, that Bob Woolmer was appointed as the Pakistan coach in 2004 to succeed Javed Miandad after India won a historic first Test series on the Pakistan soil.

Woolmer, a former England batsman and ex-South Africa coach, died hours after Pakistan were sensationally knocked out of the 2007 World Cup by Ireland.

Shaharyar’s second innings as chairman comes at a time when Pakistan are on the brink of being humiliated by Sri Lanka in the two-match Test series under a new team management that includes team manager-cum-chief selector Moin Khan, head coach Waqar Younis, bowling coach Mushtaq Ahmed, batting coach Grant Flower and trainer Grant Luden, all of whom were appointed by Sethi, who has now an influential role in the board of governors.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2014