Need for reforms in the cricket administration
Thursday, August 19, 2010
By Rizwan Ali
ISLAMABAD — Age, merit and credentials seem to matter little when it comes to determining who will run cricket in Pakistan.
It's the prerogative of the president of Pakistan to appoint anyone he decides is qualified to run the Pakistan Cricket Board. A relationship with the president, then, is a key criteria.
It was no surprise after Asif Ali Zardari took over as president in 2008 that within a month he replaced Nasim Ashraf as head of the PCB with the man of his choice — 70-year-old Ijaz Butt.
Butt, who played eight Tests for Pakistan, also happens to be the brother-in-law of the country's defence minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar from the ruling Pakistan People Party.
That kind of appointment certainly wasn't unprecedented. The three previous heads of the PCB — Ashraf, Sheheryar Khan and Tauqir Zia — were also hand-picked by the then president General Pervez Musharraf.
The previous three chairmen had promised to implement a new constitution and streamline the cricket board's affairs, but all were replaced before it could be achieved.
Butt has been no different. In almost two years since his appointment, the drafting of the constitution has continued, but a completion date remains unclear.
With no clear set of rules at the highest administrative level, it's little wonder that the Pakistan cricket team is inconsistent in international competition. The talent is undoubtedly there.
"On paper, Pakistan still has a team full of talent, yet because it has been handled and managed so badly, it has been completely unsettled," explains Osman Samiuddin, Pakistan editor for the popular global cricket website cricinfo.com.
It was back in the 1960s when the president's direct appointment of the country's cricket board was first introduced.
"Cricket needed money and patronage from the state to run itself," Samiuddin said. "That need is no longer there as the sport makes enough money comfortably to run, yet the system remains in place in Pakistan."
During Butt's tenure, Pakistan has lost 19 limited-overs internationals and won 12. In the test arena, Pakistan briefly celebrated its first test win against Australia in 15 years last month in England — at its home-away-from-home for that series — while it also beat New Zealand in a Test last year.
But during that time, there have been nine Test defeats and four drawn Tests — including a 3-0 series whitewash in Australia that resulted in senior players being banned from the national team.
Parliamentary committees of both lower and upper houses have frequently summoned the top PCB officials for explanations about the inconsistencies and also requested Butt to step down, but it looks as though the PCB head has enough backing from the president — at least for the time being.
Iqbal Mohammad Ali, chairman of the lower house's standing committee on sports, last month wrote a letter to the president condemning several of Butt's decisions. Ali's main suggestion for change was that an age limit of 65 be introduced for the head of any sports federation.
Something needs to be done to restore Pakistan's cricket credibility.
Evidence of the abundant natural talent has come in the shortest form of the game: Pakistan won the World Twenty20 in England last year. But T20, while increasingly popular with the masses and the sponsors, is still yet to take hold among cricket purists.
Under Butt's lead, the Pakistan captaincy has been a problem issue in all three forms of the game.
He has handed the captaincy to Shoaib Malik, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Shahid Afridi and now Salman Butt, but the team — it seems — is still looking for the right man to match the hopes of 170 million people of Pakistan.
In patches, Pakistani players are a threat to any international team, but as a team it is far from matching the likes of Australia, India, Sri Lanka or South Africa.
"There is no stability whatsoever," says Samiuddin. "They (PCB) have not supported any captain they have themselves appointed, thus overseeing a remarkable four changes in leadership in just over a year."
Off the field controversies are so badly managed by the PCB that after its own appointed inquiry committee first fined and banned seven cricketers after the winless tour of Australia, an arbitrator slashed the fines and lifted bans.
The ambush on the Sri Lanka cricket team's bus at Lahore, in which six police and a van driver were killed and several Sri Lankan players and officials were injured in March last year, was a major setback for Pakistan.
Pakistan was subsequently stripped of its status as co-host for the 2011 World Cup — which is now being staged in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Foreign teams have made Pakistan a no-go zone, although the ICC is planning on sending an invitational World XI to get tours started again.
Despite all the scrutiny from abroad and the ramifications on Pakistan as a sports host, a review of the attack on Sri Lanka's team bus at Lahore was finally sent to the sport's world governing body this month. That came after several prompts from the ICC.
"In the broader sense, the whole situation of the ongoing militancy in the country is out of PCB's hands," Samiuddin said. "But by not being able to do the basic requisite, such as provide a report into the attack pointing out who went wrong where, they have ensured that no international board has any confidence in their ability to run cricket.
"Consequently, when and if the security situation in Pakistan improves, this board will struggle to convince others to tour simply because it has killed its own credibility."
Vocal former Test cricketers constantly appear on talk shows and criticize Butt whenever the team does badly in international matches, but it seems very few have the answer to this key question: Who is the right man to head the PCB?
Cricket analyst Zakir Hussain Syed thinks the great Imran Khan is the right man, but since Khan is more inclined toward establishing himself in Pakistan's politics, it seems outside of his current interest.
Syed suggests Ehsan Mani or Dr. Zafar Altaf, a former chief selector, as possible candidates.
Mani, a former ICC president, has recently shown interest, but he also wanted to bring in his own administration.
However, Syed says that whoever replaces Butt should be given a fixed timeframe to streamline the PCB affairs, including the constitution and forming a general council in which representatives of cricket associations from all over the country should be allowed to elect the PCB chairman.
Recently, Imran Khan suggested in a television interview that a panel of cricketing experts — in which he was willing to sit — should interview interested candidates for the post of PCB chairman.
"One should know the vision of the candidate beforehand, how would he take forward Pakistan cricket," Khan said.
The former Pakistan captain suggested his cousin, former test captain Majid Khan.
Pakistan trails 2-0 in a four-test series against England, undoubtedly a result of the constant chopping and changing. Every negative result adds pressure on Butt to reform the structure of the PCB.
With another tough, three-Test series against South Africa planned in October in the United Arab Emirates, it is unlikely that the team will be settled under new captain Salman Butt.
Samiuddin has not lost hope, despite the outward appearance that Pakistan seems to be struggling like West Indies and Bangladesh in the five-day format or in turmoil like Zimbabwe.
"Superficially the results may look the same, but the reality is different," he said. "In West Indies, youngsters are moving toward other, more lucrative sports, like basketball, and interest in cricket itself is declining.
"In Zimbabwe, the political compulsions were of a unique nature and that required a different restructuring altogether. In Pakistan, cricket's popularity remains mostly unaffected — it is still the sport most kids want to play."
So Samiuddin remains confident of improvement.
"The team, if selected on merit, can actually be representative of a pretty robust system still capable of producing talent capable of succeeding on the world stage."
posted @ 10:48 AM,
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