We need to select younger cricketers, nurture and train them for the next World Cup.
LAHORE: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is a known cricket enthusiast and it was expected of him to take measures ridding the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) of the rot within it. The only consistency of our cricketers is their inconsistency and their inability to stand up to pressure, or learn from their own failings. Unfortunately, from team selection to organisational structure of the PCB, everything has been a victim of political interference and nepotism. Making it mandatory for the PCB chairman to be a first class cricketer is bound to be fraught with disaster. For the PCB to function properly and cope in a hostile environment, created by years of mismanagement and failure to regulate and enforce discipline, makes it mandatory that the chairman be a man with integrity, has proven administrative skills, educational qualifications, knowledge of International Cricket Council affairs and a fairly good understanding of cricket.
Controversies of corruption and irregularities that dominate various clubs, which are in turn dominated by nominees of the former chairman of the PCB, who was removed from office by the judiciary, makes them highly unlikely to be capable of electing a competent chairman. Immediate measures are required to reorganise these clubs on merit, so that elections can be held in a fair manner, if Pakistan cricket is to thrive and regain its lost glory. As for the team, it needs a thorough clean-up because Pakistan cricket cannot afford another controversy where a nexus of few players and the team management has cast a gloom. Unfit cricketers, whose fitness and age declarations are questionable, must be taken to task. We need to select younger cricketers, nurture and train them for the next World Cup, instead of making the national team hostage to cartels and player power. There should be zero tolerance for indiscipline.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2013.
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