LAHORE, Nov 9: The Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) newly formed Governing Board, in a major decision at its first meeting here on Friday, retained Shoaib Malik as Pakistan captain till December 2008.

Chairman PCB Dr Nasim Ashraf tabled the name of Shoaib before the Governing Board, which after discussing several options, gave the approval.

Later, the PCB chief told reporters the decision would boost Shoaib’s confidence in the crunch ongoing contest against India.

“Every player of the team is behind Shoaib (Malik), who is improving day by day as captain. Thus the board has decided to keep continuity, and extended his tenure which was earlier ending on Dec 31, 2007,” he said.

The board’s chief dispelled the impression that it was a premature decision, with the PCB not waiting for end of the India series to analyse Shoaib’s (captaincy) performance, before giving him extension for the national leadership.

“We have taken the decision after a thorough discussion and we believe it will help Shoaib play the (India) series with more confidence, and as all the players are behind him the decision (of retaining him) will not have any negative impact,” he said.

He further said that the vice-captain would be named on series-to-series basis after assessing the player’s performance.

Dr Nasim agreed under Shoaib’s command Pakistan have recorded some notable wins, yet the young skipper, he added, lacked in some departments.

“Yes, Shoaib has some (captaincy) flaws, however, he is improving. No one can emerge as a world-class captain in a short span of time. The boys are behind their captain and hopefully Shoaib will overcome his shortcomings soon,” he expressed.

Meanwhile, the Governing Board formed eight different committees to speed up and improve workings of the board, said the PCB chief, flanked by Chief Operating Officer (COO) Shafqat Naghmi and Director Cricket Operations (DCO) Zakir Khan.

He said the names of members of the committees would be finalised in the next couple of days.

Among the committees, the cricket committee will have two sub-committees — one related to domestic cricket and the other to international cricket, including the national team.

The other committees are related to discipline, finance and accounts, internal audit, governance and rules, media, human resource and remuneration/infrastructure.

He said that the Governing Board also approved the budget worth Rs1.8 billion for 2007-08, saying, earlier, the ad hoc body had approved the same budget. He added public would have the access to budgetary details as the PCB would display those on the official website.

He revealed that the Governing Board also endorsed appointments of the COO Shafqat and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Hamid Hasan, who had been appointed by the ad hoc committee in April.

About schedule of the Governing Board’s meetings, he said initially those would be held after every month followed by quarterly meetings.

The next meeting will be held in Karachi in January, then in Quetta followed by gatherings in Islamabad and Peshawar.On the subject of regional bodies the PCB boss said they had a big role in promoting Pakistan cricket, adding on their recommendations the board had introduced some changes in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy format.

Earlier, he explained, six teams were thrown out from the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy — Pakistan’s premier first-class competition. However, in this year’s 22-team edition only two would be ousted, he said, adding next year, four bottom sides would be eliminated to make it a 16-team contest onwards.

But it was very surprising to know that there would be no reward for the champions and runners-up of the Grade-II event for the next two years.

In the past, the two teams were relegated from the top event (Grade-I) to the second tier (Grade-II) while the two top finishers at the Grade-II contest were promoted to the top level contest, due to their fine show.

Meanwhile, in a significant announcement the PCB chief said that to avoid frequent injuries no international-level fast bowler, from now onwards, would be allowed to play county cricket.

“The board is paying handsome money to all the bowlers and we think there is no need to play county cricket,” he said.

It is important to mention here that the PCB had paid attractive sums to Mohammad Asif and Umar Gul for not playing county cricket earlier this year. Still Asif’s nagging elbow injury has been bothering him, forcing him to miss the all-important one-day series in India while his chances for the coming three-Test series there also seem slim.