LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) election commissioner and acting chairman Shah Khawer intends to conduct the body’s pending polls as soon as possible while hoping the transition of the country’s government following the upcoming general elections won’t prompt yet another change at the board’s helm.

The PCB has functioned without an elected chairman for the last 13 months following the removal of former chief Ramiz Raja from the post in December 2022. Since then, Najam Sethi and Zaka Ashraf occupied the charge as chairmen of interim Management Committees until the latter stepped down last week.

For Khawer, the period of absence of an elected chief has stretched for too long to consider holding the polls for a new one after the general elections despite fears of the new Prime Minister — who would automatically become the patron-in-chief of the PCB — appointing a board chairman of his choice, which has been the case traditionally.

The general elections are scheduled to be held on February 8 while Khawer aims to form and notify the PCB’s Board of Governors (BoG) — the eight-member electoral college that chooses the chairman — by Saturday. A week after which, he said, he would like to hold the board’s elections.

Acting chairman hopes new government wouldn’t trigger change at board’s helm

“My prime duty is to hold the elections of the PCB chairman,” Khawer said during a press conference here at the Gaddafi Stadium on Friday. “It is most likely that I will notify the Board of Governors by tomorrow, after which the elections will be conducted in seven days.”

The incumbent PCB chairman, meanwhile, did not rule out the possibility of the board’s elections after a new government takes charge. In case the board has a new chief before the general elections, Khawer suggested, it wouldn’t be too easy for the incoming premier to make a change after the establishment of “some parameters” in recent legal proceedings.

“I think it will not be easy in the future for a prime minister to change the PCB chairman as during the recent hearings in different legal courts, some parameters had been established to avoid this practice,” he said.

Khawer said his post as the PCB’s election commissioner was also challenged in the Lahore High Court, but the verdict came in his favour before he joined the board.

To determine the members of the BoG — four each from among the 14 functional regional cricket associations, out of total 16, and four from the affiliated departments — was a technical challenge.

“But hopefully we will form the BoG by tomorrow to hold the elections of the PCB chairman in the next one week,” he said, while adding that according to the LHC’s decision, the election commissioner would form the BoG.

He said the two nominees of the Prime Minister namely Mohsin Naqvi and Mustafa Ramday have already been received as per the PCB’s constitution, and after picking four regional and as many departmental representatives the BoG would be completed.

Khawer hoped that the new BoG and the chairman it elects would make amendments in the constitution to lessen the effect of the change of government on the chairman’s position.

The chairman said Mohsin Naqvi, who is incumbent caretaker chief minister of Punjab, was allowed to contest for the PCB chairman position according to the board’s constitution since the post was “not that of profit-making”.

Defending the Ministry of Inter-provincial Coordination’s control over some significant decisions of the board, Khawer said the PCB was an autonomous body having its own BoG and chairman and the IPC was “just playing the role of a post-office between the patron and the PCB”.

Khawer confirmed his meetings with Pakistan team director Mohamamd Hafeez and chief selector Wahab Riaz. While admitting the team’s performances have been poor during their recent tours to Australia and New Zealand — Hafeez and Wahab’s only two assignments so far — Khawer said Hafeez’s fate would be decided by the patron. However, he noted that the post should be advertised.

The current PCB chairman said he would avoid making long-term recruitments but would consider hiring personnel in case of necessity. Khawer believed there was a need to review the PCB’s policy regarding issuing NOCs to the players for playing franchise T20 leagues.

“… some ambiguity was raised when the players had signed their central contracts during the World Cup, they had already signed agreements with some leagues,” he observed. “The players’ first priority must be Pakistan because the country made them an international product.”

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2024