LAHORE: It seems that Pakistan Cricket Board’s Cricket Committee is reluctant to take any action against West Zone of the Lahore Regional Cricket Association (LRCA) for making unauthorised changes in its teams, selected by PCB-formed selection committee for the inter-district seniors tournament held some five months ago.

Dawn has learnt that PCB’s domestic department had complained about West Zone for including five or six unregistered and non-selected players in its two squads, in place of the campaigners picked by the selection committee comprising national selector Saleem Jaffer, Mohsin Kamal (PCB-appointed region head coach) and Naushad Ahmed (West Zone president).

The selection committee, as per the policy, submitted two 20-member squads of the West Zone to PCB’s domestic department.

But, it is alleged, that during the inter-district seniors event Naushad -- in clear violation of the playing conditions and rules for the event — included unregistered members in the playing eleven for different matches.

According to the rules, the Clause (I) article Special Registration of playing conditions and rules for domestic tournaments 2015-2016 states: “If any Association/Department includes unregistered/non-qualified player(s) in the playing eleven, the president/secretary concerned of the Association (District/City/Zone/Region) may be banned for at least one year and department concerned may be fined Rs50,000.”

PCB’s domestic department, to get clarification on the matter from Naushad, issued a show-cause notice to him in June.

However, after receiving no satisfactory reply the case has been submitted to the Cricket Committee chairman Shakil Sheikh who is yet to take any action, raising concerns that he is not ready to implement the rules.

Interestingly, just last month, the same Cricket Committee, in a high-profile meeting, had resolved: “It was also decided [in the meeting] to weed out malpractice and corruption at the regional level.”

The said meeting was also specially attended by PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan, head coach Waqar Younis, bowling coach Mushtaq Ahmed, chief selector Haroon Rasheed, then domestic director Intikhab Alam and then NCA bowling coach Mohammad Akram, who has now resigned.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2015

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