ISLAMABAD, May 29: The Senate Standing Committee on Sports on Saturday examined the top officials of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in a marathon meeting convened to conduct a postmortem for the recent series defeat to India.
Shaharyar M. Khan, the chairman of the PCB, and chief executive Ramiz Raja faced a volley of critical questions from the senators that clearly forced them on to the backfoot.
The members had come well prepared, especially PPP's Muhammad Enver Baig who accused Shaharyar of "taking the cricket board as a joke" while calling upon Ramiz to stop commentating.
"You cannot go on doing commentary and be the chief executive at the same time," he said emphatically and pointed to the clause in the PCB constitution that says that the CEO has to work full time.
Ramiz commentates for a leading television channel and is also an employee of Allied Bank. He defended himself by saying that he had the approval of the International Cricket Council's Conflict of Interest Committee and also that of the PCB patron General Pervez Musharraf.
"Cricket is my bread and butter and besides I am not contracted by any company; also I have dropped my commentary assignments a number of times when there is work to be done in the PCB," he told the committee.
Shaharyar tried rather unsuccessfully to explain what went wrong against India to whom Pakistan lost the one-day series 3-2 and the Tests 2-1.
"I do not want to give excuses and as chairman I accept full responsibility; I admit there were faults," he said responding to questions by a vocal Kamil Ali Agha who asked how come the press were able to predict the result of matches quite accurately.
"The ICC's Anti Corruption Unit (ACU) was here during the series and I spoke to them and they gave us a clean sheet; there was no evidence of match-fixing," Shaharyar said.
He outlined three reasons for the loss, Pakistan's first series defeat to India at home. "The Indians played to their true potential while our strong point which was bowling let us down and our team was found to be lacking in unity and national spirit, especially in the Tests."
But he insisted that the series defeat was not a disaster. "We lost narrowly; however we have reviewed our cricketing failures and the PCB advisory council will analyse these further."
Kamil Ali pointed out that Shaharyar had been appointed the head of PCB to stem the rot but said since his arrival, things had gone from bad to worse.
Senator Tariq Azeem, referring to Shoaib Akhtar as "apampered and spoilt baby" said that the fast bowler should be told clearly either to play cricket or do his tantrums.
Shaharyar assured the senator that Shoaib will not be given any special treatment in future and he will have to show complete fitness and commitment to be on the team.
Shoaib had gone down during the Rawalpindi Test with a rib injury and did not bowl on the third day. But he came on to bat the next day showing no signs of being unfit that led to suspicion he may have been faking the injury.
However, subsequent tests revealed he did sustain the injury which Shaharyar admitted before the committee.
The constitution of the PCB also came up for discussion with Enver Baig asking why was it taking so long to have it revised. "The new constitution should be ready within four months after which it will be put before the General Body."
As hard-hitting questions continued to pour in, Shaharyar was asked if the PCB's audit was being conducted. "Yes we have the audit report for 2002 while for 2003 accounts have just been audited."
He was told to submit the report with the committee within a month.
Shaharyar said that he would see if coach Javed Miandad was required and termed Inzamamul Haq as a decent man but not an inspiring leader.
He disclosed that in the days ahead he planned to focus on ways to improve the team's performance, better the state of domestic cricket and to have a workable constitution duly approved by the general body. Making the stadiums spectator- friendly and concentrating on the grassroots level were the other areas he would be looking into.
Ramiz, meanwhile, told the house that the PCB had earned revenues of Rs120 crore from the India series and now had a total of approximately Rs 150 crores in its kitty.
He absolved himself of any responsibility over the telecast deal with TenSports and said he was not a signatory to it. "I was not the chief executive when it was signed."
The meeting, chaired by Senator Zafar Iqbal Chaudhry, later instructed the PCB officials that also included chief selector Wasim Bari, to submit all their explanations on the India series in writing.
The next meeting will be held either in Lahore or Karachi with some of the former Test cricketers also being asked to attend.
Also in attendance on Saturday were sports minister Rais Munir Ahmed, Senators Dr Shahzad Waseem, Mrs Razina Alam Khan, Prof Muhammad Saeed Siddiqui, Dr Nighat Agha, Mrs Fauzia Fakhar-uz-Zaman Khan, Dr Kauser Firdaus, Syed Murad Ali Shah and Secretary, Ministry of Sports, Syed Jalil Abbas.