ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Standing Committee on Inter Provincial Coordination (IPC) has taken strong notice of the Pakistan Cricket Board’s recent action against the members of its Board of Governors (BOG) and has directed the PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani to withhold his decisions of barring one member and issue show cause notices to two other members.

Read: PCB chairman appoints independent adjudicator to probe misconduct charges against BoG member

The standing committee chairman, MNA Agha Hassan Baloch, has written a letter to Chairman PCB last Tuesday, April 23rd to withhold the decisions of barring member Nouman Butt from BoG meetings and to serve show-cause notices to two others. “The members of BoG have approached me for withholding of decisions the PCB has taken against them,” he wrote.

“They also want the decisions taken at the BoG meeting held on 17th April in Quetta to be implemented. The matter is going to be discussed in the forthcoming meeting of Standing Committee on IPC which is scheduled to be held on 6th May at the Parliament House Islamabad.”

“It is therefore, requested to please withhold the decisions/actions taken against the members of BoG till the meeting of committee is over,” the letter further said.

Speaking to Dawn, IPC Committee Chairman Agha Hassan said that committee will hold detailed discussion on the issue since the BoG members have further informed him that if departmental cricket is abolished, a large number of cricketers will become jobless. “We have also decided to take view points of former cricketers on this issue as well,” he said.

It may be mentioned here that in the meeting that held in Quetta last week, five members of BoG out of seven, reportedly tabled a resolution and, according to them, they had got it passed with majority against the PCB plans to shut down all regional and departmental teams and turn it into a provincial system.

They also termed the PCB action of appointing Wasim Khan as PCB managing director as illegal and unconstituional.

Subsequently, the PCB barred Nouman Butt, head of Sialkot region, from attending any BoG and committee meetings and issued show-cause notices to two more BOG members — Shah Dost from Quetta and Kabir Ahmed Khan from Fata.

Lahore Region’s head Shahrez Abdullah Rokhari, who initially stood against the PCB chairman along with Nouman, Kabir and Dost, has dissociated himself from the group and a few days ago reconciled with the PCB. The fifth member of the revolting group Ayaz Butt, from KRL, was not served a direct show-cause but the PCB has sent the notice to his department.

The standing committee, besides discussing the BoG issue in the next meeting, will also take up the issue of Pakistan Hockey Federation and decline in hockey.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2019