Drumbeats of discontent against Ejaz Butt’s stewardship of the Pakistan Cricket Board are becoming louder and louder. When he was appointed PCB chairman, back in October 2008, the news was received with a sigh of relief.

Throughout this decade, Pakistan’s cricket management has suffered under the misguided leadership of elitist generals, patrician diplomats, and self-absorbed opportunists. Now here was a man with Test cricket credentials and a decent record of being a business leader to boot. As many in our media and cricket circles saw it at the time, after a long interval the right kind of person had finally been appointed to the chairmanship of the PCB.

It was not long before hopes began to sour. Soon after assuming office, Butt made loud noises about involving some of our great ex-cricketers in the affairs of the Board, hiring Javed Miandad as director-general to popular acclaim. Yet he failed to mediate between his advisers and left a leadership vacuum precipitating Miandad’s acrimonious departure from the PCB. When Miandad, no slouch at political manoeuvring, got himself reinstated within two months, the whole mess became a joke and Butt cut a sorry figure.

Another of Butt’s high-profile appointments was Aamir Sohail, who was made director of the National Cricket Academy in November 2008. He never settled into the role and quit eight months later. Sohail’s public statement at the time was that he had resigned due to ‘personal reasons’ but it is no secret that he had a testy relationship with Ejaz Butt throughout.

Then, of course, there was the embarrassment surrounding Abdul Qadir’s peculiar tenure as chief selector. He also took over in November 2008, announcing with enthusiasm and eagerness that he will institute a merit-based system in which no first-class player will have cause for complaint. Seven months into the job, Qadir abruptly resigned.

Initially, he was quiet on the matter and the official statement from the PCB was that Qadir had provided them no explanation for quitting. Those who know Qadir understood it was just the calm before the storm, and sure enough within a few days the grievances came tumbling out. He had no independence or respect in the job, Qadir complained, and blamed the coach and manager for undue interference in team selection. Butt’s failure to resolve differences within his top brass was exposed yet again.

Most incriminating of all were the events of March 3, 2009, the darkest day in Pakistan’s cricket history, when our organisational negligence allowed the visiting Sri Lankan team to come under a terror attack. As chairman of the host cricket board, Butt was ultimately accountable for the comfort and welfare of our Sri Lankan guests. Yet the logistic arrangements were rudimentary and the lax security apparatus had left the Sri Lankan tour bus unprotected. Butt’s response was to hang on to his job by playing the blame game. Any man of conscience would have resigned for far less.

Butt’s farcical handling of PCB’s dispute with the International Cricket Council over World Cup 2011 is the latest misstep in his blundering chairmanship tenure. After the ICC stripped Pakistan of its 14 World Cup fixtures following the terrorism in Lahore, Butt appeared at a meeting of the ICC’s executive council unprepared, without any coherent facts or proposals. A suggestion for Dubai and Abu Dhabi to serve as alternate venues was belatedly and half-heartedly floated; inexplicably, it was never properly pursued. Butt then launched an impetuous legal attack on the PCB and soon found that he was out of his depth.

Now we learn he has had an amicable meeting with the ICC president David Morgan and come back with US$18 million while conceding hosting rights for all the Pakistan-based World Cup matches to our neighbours. In effect, this is $18 million for sitting on your posteriors doing nothing. No one is fooled.

Judging by cricketing standards, Ejaz Butt is a failed captain. He selected some highly talented players for his management team at the PCB but was unable to get the best out of them, with the result that his best people have either left or been marginalised. Insiders report that the atmosphere within the Board has become very fractious and dispiriting. Pre-occupied with self-preservation, Butt has surrounded himself with loyalists and cronies while the larger goal of preserving and promoting Pakistan cricket remains adrift. Although Miandad continues under the title of director-general, he has no say in governance and is kept at an arm’s length. Even while waving fat compensation cheques, Butt keeps lamenting PCB’s ‘terrible’ financial woes. But the finances are deliberately kept opaque and no outsider knows the truth. Attempts by the Senate Standing Committee on Sports to inquire into the PCB’s financial health have made little headway.

For now, Butt continues in the job by default. President Zardari, the only person with the power to replace the PCB chairman, is understandably distracted by a bevy of competing issues that have pushed cricket far down the priority list. Alternatives to Butt have been mentioned — the name of Ali Raza, head of National Bank and a long-serving member of the PCB governing body, is sometimes cited — but we are at the mercy of local and geo-political events to see when cricket might once again become a priority for the President of Pakistan.