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Merit? Dr. Nauman Niaz In Contention to Become PCB’s Next MD!

How does a post-graduate in the field of Endocrinology get shortlisted for Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) Managing Director (MD) position? This is the story of Dr. Nauman Niaz and how Pakistan lacks merit-based selection.

Pursuing a Career in Medicine

Son of Lieutenant General Hamid Niaz (rtd.) of Pakistan Army, life was served in a silver platter for Nauman Niaz. He set his goals high and aimed to pursue a career in the medical field. Born and bread in Rawalpindi, Nauman completed his MBBS from Rawalpindi Medical College. Following his Bachelors, he had the financial resources to go abroad and get his Ph.D., which he completed at the University of Western Australia.

Upon his return, Nauman Niaz was enrolled as a post-graduate trainee at the Holy Family in 1999. It seemed as if his fate was sealed and he had finally achieved all he set out to become.

Accidental Fame?

Nauman Niaz’s television career kicked off by chance. He appeared on a Syed Talat Hussain’s show Sawere, Sawere as a guest; that particular episode of the show was dedicated to discussing cricket and the on-going 1996 World Cup at that time. Following his appearance, he was asked to host pre and post-match analysis of the World Cup.

He then remained with PVTC and hosted various cricket-related talk shows. Later on, he also joined Star Sports and Ten Sports as a sports host.

In 2011, PTV acquired the rights for the 2011 World Cup and decided to re-hire Nauman Niaz. A couple of years later, PTV launched its dedicated sports channel called PTV Sports and appointed Nauman as Head of Content and a Senior Anchorperson.

This is exactly how Nauman Niaz, a cricket fanatic at best, transformed himself into an accidental sports journalist.

Merit-Based Appointment? Absolutely Not!

Nauman Niaz was a likable figure during his screen-on time and that led PCB to appoint him, a person who has never played the game, as a Media Coordinator. Soon after that, he was promoted to Manager Coordinator of Asian Cricket Council.

Having never played the game, domestically or internationally, Nauman Niaz has found himself in a unique position which enabled him to criticize players like Misbah-ul-Haq and Shahid Afridi, who have dedicated their entire lives to playing cricket and serving the country.

The problem is very apparent; how is one supposed to analyze a game if he or she has never experienced the game for themselves? Even if they do – their opinions should and must hold little weight, which is not the case in Nauman Niaz’s situation. His opinions cannot be labeled as ‘constructive criticism’ rather a mean to spark controversies.

As a wise man once said that there is no need to dig up the past, which I concur with. However, with PCB shortlisting Dr. Nauman for the MD position again, it gives ammunition to those who are tired of this never-ending vicious cycle; the one where rules are dictated by nepotism.

SEO Team Lead, Content Strategist, and an avid sports lover!


  • Writer sahib.. why don’t you become a judge of the supreme court..? Why wasting your time in this stagnant blog where content is 2-days stale(I opened it up in the morning and the last post was made 2 days ago). Wese bhi, your content page gets updated as if maintaining a blog is a 9-6 job.

  • A humble request to the writer: When you are writing a paid/tilted/agenda based content, you don’t go that far that it becomes obvious. That is the beauty of writing, that you get your point across, make people believe in what you are writing without being obvious. Though the stats you have written might be true, but the way they are being portrayed is absolutely wrong.

    • If you want to sit back and let wrongdoings occur then it’s your prerogative. However, then you should also be the last one to complain if things take a turn for the worse because you didn’t speak up when you had the chance.

  • “Having never played the game, domestically or internationally, Nauman Niaz has found himself in a unique position which enabled him to criticize players like Misbah-ul-Haq and Shahid Afridi, who have dedicated their entire lives to playing cricket and serving the country.”

    Najam Sethi to Champion player tha na lol

  • Mr writer, you should know the two of the largest and most influential cricket boards, Indian & English, both have chairman who have zero prior cricket playing experience! Not to mention that one of them in the chairman of ICC!
    Furthermore, spilling over to other sports we have coaches, managers, owners, chairman, who have had nothing to do with playing the sport itself!

    If this guy has no right to become the chairman, I am not sure how you are deemed worthy enough to criticize someone who knows much more about cricket than you do!

    please write unbiased pieces. This is terrible writing.

    • Don’t know about the “terrible writing” but this is “terrible reading” because the article isn’t even about making someone the next PCB Chairman, it is about a candidate for PCB MD.

    • I do however agree with the writer that Dr Nouman has always been a dual-faced person. For example if Pakistan loses, he would do a program on why Hafeez and Malik are still playing and when Hafeez is dropped he’d be the one inviting him to his program and saying that how is justified that someone like Hafeez has been dropped from the side.

      His only purpose is to cash in on Pakistan’s poor performances, make a biased point based on whoever is missing from the team and negatively criticize Pakistani team. Similar to other journalists like Majid Bhatti, Yahya Hussaini and that female journalists no one knows about.
      Though Dr Nouman’s team of analysts is good and they do make constructive remarks about all players, Dr Nouman’s role has always been negative except his part in focusing on cricket in PTV.

  • although Nauman Niaz is Class A sycophant but this article is written by someone with barely 40 IQ..
    writer himself states that Nauman first appeared on TV in 1996 and then rants about “no experience” and nepotism on appointment as Media Coordinator.


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