TAUQIR Zia is finally out. The ex-Corps Commander of Mangla has stepped off the pedestal and will no longer be the Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board. At least this is how it looked till the time the Magazine was sent to bed. The end of his four controversial years at Gaddafi Stadium came not in the fashion that he would have wanted it to. Here is the text of his last (?) press-conference:

“I requested the President that I am completing four years on December 14 and have some other things to do and asked him again on November 30 and he told me that if I want to go I could go. I asked him, who to hand over the charges but he has yet to decide on a name.

I have taken this decision after a long thought, (I) discussed it with all the members of my family. This is not an emotional decision because four years is a long term. I have given more time to cricket than to the military in my 38 years of service. I know that all those with me since 1999, we had one mind and that (was) to prepare a structure and then (run) everything according to that. Institutionalize the board, we had short term and long term planning, under the Vision 2005 which included academies, infrastructure, grounds, coaches and umpires, revenue generation, cricket foundation. Seventy per cent of the Vision 2005 has been completed or on the way, only the foundation work could not be started.

Cricket grounds have been upgraded and we now have grounds in Balochistan and they are all there. We have set up a cricket academy on the lines of Australian academy and it was the brainchild of this Board. Australia had 14 players in their World Cup winning squad and considering that we thought that we should also set up academies so that we can train our youngsters.

I would compliment Mudassar for helping us though he went against us and then apologized. Haroon Rasheed, Aaqib Javed and others helped us in that. It would take at least four years to produce results. We have prepared coaches. All the programme would be passed to my successor.

I have to build my house and there are other domestic reasons. Then another main reason was that because of me, my son Junaid Zia was under pressure. Because of my son I had to face criticism and in that I would like to tell Zaheer Abbas that Junaid Zia is a 20-year-old boy and is not Zaheer’s level. He must work above that. Because of me his (Junaid) cricket was suffering and since he is very sentimental, there was undue pressure on me. While travelling from Rawalpindi to Lahore, recently, he discussed that with me; my children had always said that you should have left earlier. Junaid, perhaps, was happy that he won’t have that pressure that he is playing because of his father. Now it’s his luck whether he gets into the team or not but I did not want his life or career be affected.

I had always verbally told the President that I can’t stay for long because cricket board has more tension than working in military, so its difficult. First you have 38 years (of) tension and then four year tension in the board. We remained in crisis, had problems of Kashmir and Kargils in the military and had tensions in the board of match-fixing, teams not coming to Pakistan, World Cup 2003 problems and after that disaster there was an opinion that one should have quit at that time but I took it as a challenge to rebuild a team.

The team is before you, I won’t say I am hundred per cent satisfied with it, no one gets satisfied. A lot of people have worked on it and the team is on the rise.

I am thankful to the president for his unprecedented support all through these four and never made me felt that his support was not with me and once you have such a confidence you try more.

Secondly I am grateful to the staff of the PCB. We did commit mistakes but some of them were unnecessarily highlighted. All the staff members are competent but their only problem is lack of coordination. At times I did scold them but they did not react and did their job to the best of their capabilities.

I would specially thank Ramiz Raja for he was with me throughout four years. I offered him job of the academy director and he did not charge a penny from the Board. I allowed him and Aamir Sohail to do commentary and that was my decision. Since then he is chief executive he has worked very well. Sohail, Javed Miandad, Haroon Rasheed, all have worked well. I would specially thank Sohail, I think he was the best chief selector. He is aggressive but I like his straight forward nature. I thank Javed Miandad who was with me in the advisory council and now as coach. I think, perhaps, there can never be a better batsman in Pakistan than Miandad.

I thank Rashid Latif for he shouldered the team well after the World Cup and brought the team to this level. There were some unfortunate events due to which he had to go out but he has a major contribution in the rebuilding of the side. I don’t know for how long this rebuilding would go, I had said it would go for one year which completes in 2004. The selection system we had in the four years had no anglings whether it was under Wasim Bari or under Sohail. We gave Test cap to Yasir Ali who was nowhere and was not even in the probables. We never had Karachi-Lahore in the selection. Just one player was there who was included in a junior team because of some pressure.

I thank the press for their support. There was a lot of criticism but I took that in the right stead. Good luck to DAWN, may be they would get another victim after me, to criticise; I hope they do not get one. They always favoured me. I apologize everyone if I hurt anyone but I never that intentionally.

I wish Pakistan reach at the top and request everyone, including the press, to support the team and Pakistan cricket.

I have not resigned because of the TV row between Pakistan Cricket Board and GEO because we had no responsibility on that. The PCB gave rights to the GEO and did not know anything about the uplink requirement.