LAHORE: The match officials who were involved in the Inter-district Senior Cricket Championships ending on Aug 22 are still waiting for their dues to be paid by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

Some umpires told Dawn that those officials who are not well off or have no jobs in any departments, totally rely on their match fees, but almost two months had passed with the PCB not clearing their dues. They said the PCB should adopt a system to pay match officials systematically as there were no hard rules in this regard, while adding the PCB employees had been receiving their salaries every month on regularly.

But the match officials aren’t afforded such system to receive their dues on time, they lamented. The match officials had to travel to different cities for the supervision of matches and also spend money on their own, and such delay in payment of dues compounded their problems.

When contacted, PCB, General Manager domestic Junaid Zia said that the finance department was dealing with the issue and hopefully soon the dues would be cleared as it was not a big problem.

Junaid explained the change on the PCB front with Ramiz Raja taking over as chairman during this period is also one factor behind the long delay, about which the umpires also knew.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2021