LAHORE, Nov 4: Despite playing three One-day Internationals this year, an international player is neither on the players’ central contract list of his respective region nor of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). The PCB has been paying a central contract to the country’s top 29 cricketers besides giving it to top 20 players of every region.
But Pakistan pace bowler Abdur Rauf is not in the list of both the Multan region and the PCB, in spite of the fact that the previous national selection committee — headed by Salahuddin Ahmed — had recommended him for the central contract.
However, the PCB bureaucracy has upset the talented bowler, who has been giving his best performance at the domestic level for the last seven years, was overlooked for international cricket until Salahuddin picked him in the playing XI for the one-dayer against Zimbabwe at Sheikhupura early this year.
It has been learnt by Dawn that PCB’s previous management did not allow the Multan region to give a monthly remuneration to Rauf on the pretext that he would be included in the PCB’s central contract list.
But when the selectors recommended a 30-member list to the PCB for its final approval, the bureaucracy omitted Rauf and Junaid Zia. The revised list of 28 players was sent to the PCB’s Governing Board and the international cricket committee for their final approval, which was given.
Later, Lt Gen Tauqir Zia, while protesting the omission of his son’s name, spoke to the then chairman PCB, Dr Nasim Ashraf, and following an inquiry the International Cricket Committee informed the chairman that the player’s name was not included in the list, received by him from the PCB.
On further inquiry it was revealed that a three-member PCB committee comprising the then Chief Operating Officer (COO) Shafqat Naghmi, Director International Cricket Zakir Khan and Director Academy Mudassar Nazar excluded both Rauf and Junaid from the original list of players.
As a result of this although Junaid was included, Rauf was sidelined since he didn’t have a strong source to fight his case.
Rauf played three ODIs this year in which he took eight wickets. He also represented his region, Multan, in all the domestic competitions, without the central contract.
There were further miseries in store for Rauf when former coach Geoff Lawson imposed a fine of Rs50,000 on Rauf for violating a principle set by the coach himself for the training session. Lawson had adopted a principle for the fast bowlers to leave the pitch area quickly after delivering the ball in order to avoid sledging. As Rauf was new, he was unaware about this and the coach fined him.Afterwards, Rauf appealed to Lawson to waive the fine as not being a centrally-contracted player, he couldn’t afford to pay such a hefty sum of money.
Lawson then had asked Naghmi to waive the ban as it had only been put to warn the bowler. But Naghmi refused to do so and deducted a sum of Rs35,000 from Rauf’s Asia Cup earnings.
The same PCB bureaucracy had also turned down the former chief selector’s recommendation to send Rauf to India in 2007 when Umar Gul was injured. Instead, they had sent Rao Iftikhar. The chief selector had also picked Rauf for the One-day International against Zimbabwe at Faisalabad only to be informed later that he had been omitted through a phone call while the player was on his way to Faisalabad.
A hue and cry raised in the press then forced the bureaucracy not to make further mockery of the selection committee while allowing the player to make his international debut against Zimbabwe in Sheikhupura. Rauf justified his selection by taking three wickets in that match.