LAHORE: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has raised its concern over the mechanism adopted in the new constitution of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for electing chairman of the board, well-placed sources have told Dawn.

The PCB has to implement a new constitution to make it democratic, under the instructions of the ICC, by June this year, otherwise it will face penalties. According to the new draft constitution, the PCB chairman will come through a democratic system instead of being appointed by the patron as per the existing practice.

But under the new constitution, the patron has the power to form a nomination committee, which will select one of the suitable persons for the said post, who will get the votes from all ten members of the PCB Governing Board. Therefore, it is strongly felt that the PCB patron still has indirect role in getting PCB chairman of his choice elected.

No wonder, the ICC has raised its concern while replying to the queries of some individuals belonging to Pakistan’s cricket fraternity, who wanted to challenge the new constitution in the court of law. However, first they have decided to get ICC’s view on the new draft constitution.

The ICC has kept a standardised model for a cricket board constitution, which follows the spirit of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) charter.

Under the IOC charter, general body is the right institution to elect a sports body’s office-bearers, including its chairman.

But the new PCB constitution — instead of involving members of the general body — is giving powers to only 10 Governing Board members.Interestingly, the tenure of the GB members in the new constitution has been reduced to just one year from two, while it has been increased for the PCB chairman from three years to four.

However, sources said the ICC had also cleared that it had no power to approve the constitution of any of its member boards.

The concern of the ICC, however, contradicted the reported claim of the PCB that the international body had made the new draft of the PCB constitution by itself and the PCB had no role in it.