LAHORE: Finally the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has woken up after five months of suspending the regional cricket associations’ set up, instructing the defunct regional bodies for the handing/taking over of the office furniture and equipments to the PCB.

In a letter issued by PCB domestic cricket director Haroon Rasheed to different regional bodies, written on Dec 9, seven days are given to the defunct bodies for the handing and taking over of furniture and equipments. The PCB new constitution was promulgated on August 19, 2019, under which all the 16 regional bodies have been defunct and now six provincial cricket associations will be formed to run the domestic cricket and they would be affiliated with city cricket associations.

But so far neither provincial nor city cricket associations come to functional as the domestic cricket is almost dead. The PCB has been running the domestic cricket directly, by finalizing the six provincial teams, while bypassing inter-city cricket tournaments.

Moreover, surprisingly, while on one side the PCB claims the regional cricket associations have been defunct under its new constitution, on the other hand four regional cricket association presidents of Lahore, Quetta, FATA and currently suspended Sialkot are still working in the Board of Governors (BoGs), the supreme body of the PCB. More surprisingly, four members of the departments are also working on the BoGs, despite the fact the PCB has disaffiliated all the departmental cricket from its set up under the new set up.

Moreover, one of the defunct regional cricket association presidents on the condition of anonymity said how the regions would hand over the equipments to the PCB when the Board had not paid the monthly budget of the regional bodies since Feb 2019, which ranges from PKRS 50,000 to PKR 90,000.

“We have written many reminders to the PCB to pay their dues but we are still waiting for the amount,” he said. He further pointed out that the PCB had also been asking for the accounts of the regions but he added how it was possible, when the PCB had never appointed finance manager with a region from day-one, according to the previous constitution.

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2019