No change really at the PCB

Letter October 04, 2014
The new PCB chief needs to take his own independent decisions.

LAHORE: The statement of Shehryar Khan on the first day of his taking over as the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), saying that Misbahul Haq will be retained as captain till the World Cup, removed any semblance of doubts about the fact that the new PCB chief will blindly continue the polices of his predecessor. The manner in which the national team surrendered in the recent Test and One-Day International series against Sri Lanka was shocking. Even more pathetic was the inertia of the top management of the PCB, which failed to perform any accountability of the tour management. The board also looked the other way when the time came to fix the person(s) responsible for not taking preemptive measures that would have saved Saeed Ajmal from the ban imposed by the International Cricket Council. This is a very serious matter since several commentators and experts had been speaking about the possibility of this happening for several months.

Furthermore, the recent case of Younus Khan has been mishandled. A player with his stellar qualities should not have to fight to be selected, but that is what seems to be happening. The question that comes to mind is that if a world class cricketer like him can be sacked on the basis of poor performance in a single match, why can’t the team manager and chief selector be given the same treatment? The new PCB chief needs to take his own independent decisions. He can seek help and advice of former players in this regard.

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5th, 2014.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.