LAHORE: In yet another alteration to the national selection committee, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) cut down the number of its members to just five on Thursday.

The committee formerly consisted of a total of 11 members; four selectors, a data analyst, the captain and head coach of the national side and four ex-officio members (those without voting power).

In its latest move, the PCB decided to remove the captain, head coach and the ex-officio members from the committee, giving overriding powers to the remaining five members, namely former cricketers Aaqib Javed, Azhar Ali and Asad Shafique, former umpire Aleem Dar and data analyst Hasan Cheema.

The committee has been handed the authority of not only selecting squads, but picking Pakistan playing XIs as well, a PCB spokesperson told Dawn on Thursday.

After taking charge in February this year, incumbent PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi has made several changes to the selection committee. To start with, Mohsin formed a seven-member committee, which included the Pakistan captain and head coach.

The board’s chief later added assistant coach Azhar Mahmood, data analyst Bilal Afzal and PCB officials Usman Wahla and Nadeem Khan as non-voting or ex-officio members to the committee.

Pakistan’s series of shocking results, starting from their disastrous defeat to the United States at the ICC T20 World Cup — which saw the team miss out on the knockout stages — and their maiden Test whitewash at the hands of Bangladesh at home, triggered further changes to the selection committee.

Following Pakistan’s innings loss to England in the opening fixture of the ongoing three-match Test series last week, Mohsin added Aaqib, Azhar and Aleem to the selection committee, before finally axing six members from it.

The PCB chief, however, has stuck to his policy of not appointing a head to lead the committee.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2024