LAHORE: Former Test cricketers and ex-chief selectors Iqbal Qasim and Haroon Rasheed have emerged as candidates for a newly created post of ‘director cricket operations’ in the Pakistan Cricket Board, it has been learnt.

According to sources, Iqbal and Haroon have applied for the said post and the successful candidate is likely to start functioning on July 15.

Earlier, the PCB had separate posts of directors for domestic and international cricket departments. However, now in the new set-up the director cricket operations will carry out both the functions.

First, the PCB abolished the post of director from both domestic and international departments to hand over each of these departments to a general manager. But now it has merged the two departments, a move that indicates that the PCB is still experimenting on its cricket operations.

The 62-year-old Iqbal, sources say, is most likely to get the post of director cricket operations because according to the PCB advertisement for the said position, priority will be given to those candidates, who have experience of 10 years preferably in sports affairs.

Iqbal, a veteran of 50 Test matches, possesses vast experience of managing sports affairs, having worked as head of NBP sports department for many years.

Though Haroon, 63, holds the experience of running the National Cricket Academy and accompanied different Pakistan teams both as manager and coach, his performance as the previous chief selector may come as the biggest hurdle in his way to get the post of ‘director cricket operations’.

During Haroon’s two-year tenure as chief selector (which ended after Pakistan’s disastrous exit from the World T20 earlier this year), Pakistan failed miserably in major contests including the New Zealand tour and Asia Cup T20 (both held this year before the World T20.

Several decisions made by Haroon-led selection committee were criticised heavily in the quarters concerned, leading to very poor results by Pakistan teams in ODI and T20 formats.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2016