LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) while revising plan of selling media rights has decided to sell them for the next five years instead of eight.

Ehsan Mani, the chairman of the PCB media rights committee, told reporters here on Tuesday that earlier the plan was to sell media rights for eight-year period but now it was realised that the PCB might not be able to earn maximum profit from the last three years of the eight-year period. So, he added, it was better to sell the media rights for five-year period.

Ehsan was named as chairman of the media rights committee by previous PCB chairman Najam Sethi during last days of his tenure, giving him the task of selling media rights for eight-year period .

Though objections were raised over decision of selling media rights for eight years, the PCB pressed ahead with the same plan. However, when the incumbent chairman took the charge he decided to reduce the time period for media rights from eight to five years.

Ehsan also said that England and Australia — the other two members of the Big Three — should take stand on International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman N. Srinivasan in wake of the decision by the Indian Supreme Court which has also included name of the Srinivasan in IPL match-fixing scandal.

Both countries should ask ICC chairman Srinivasan to clear himself from match-fixing allegations before heading the ICC, he maintained.

It is important to note that while Srinivasan is not bound to resign as BCCI president to become the ICC chairman, the newly-nominated ICC president from Pakistan Najam Sethi has to resign as member of the Board of Governors before joining the ICC from July 1, 2015.

Answering a question, Ehsan said the same rule must be applied in connection with ICC chairmanship.

Talking about tainted fast bowler Mohammad Amir, the chairman of the media rights committee endorsed views of former Pakistan captain Ramiz Raja about return of the disgraced fast bowler to the international cricket.

He further said it won’t be easy even for Amir to stage a comeback as he had to first play domestic cricket after getting clearance from the ICC, adding that it won’t be easy for some of the tainted players to regain their lost form.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2014