LAHORE: Patron-in-chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) , Prime Minister Imran Khan, has turned down the proposal made by chairman PCB Ehsan Mani to appoint former legendary opening batsman Majid Khan as the chief executive of PCB, well informed sources told Dawn on Thursday.

Majid is Imran’s cousin and both have played lot of cricket for Pakistan together in the late 1970-80. Though Majid would have been the best choice for the CEO’s post according to critics and experts, the prime minister was reluctant to give any role to any of his close relatives.

Mani, in his maiden press conference held on Sept 4 after getting elected as PCB chairman, had expressed his concern over the trend of the Board chairman also enjoying the powers of chief executive - as done by previous chairman Najam Sethi. Mani said he is keen to see a separate post of chief executive assigned to a competent person.

Majid had acted as the Board’s chief executive in late Prime Mini­ster Benazir Bhutto’s tenure as well as in Nawaz Sharif’s earlier tenure. Majid was very vocal against the notorious trend of match-fixing at the time and took strict measures to fight the menace.

However, he was later replaced by Khalid Mahmood in Nawaz Sharif’s regime. Khalid went on to announce that he would not sideline any cricketer until he is proved guilty.

Unfortunately, though, the fixing trend caught on rapidly, leading at first to Pakistan’s stunning defeat in the World Cup 1999 against the then lowly-ranked newcomers Bangladesh and then to Australia in a lop-sided final. That compelled the PM Nawaz to set up a judicial commission under Justice (retd.) Malik Qayyum which dished out punishments and fines to many cricketers.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2018