In the tumultuous world of cricket in Pakistan, few sagas have been as gripping and consequential as the battle for the chairmanship of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). The high-stakes power struggle between the political parties infiltrated the PCB, leaving the landscape of Pakistan cricket scarred and its future uncertain.
The post of PCB Chairman is very different from other cricket boards. There aren’t many chairmen of cricket boards who hold multiple posts in the govt. or aren’t many who come into the power based on their political affiliations, here’s where Pakistan comes in.
Let’s have a look at the timeline of how this fight for PCB chairmanship ruined (or nearly) Pakistan cricket.
Ramiz Raja
All chairmen have been political appointments or you could say a reward that the PM gives someone for being loyal. After removing Ehsan Mani, Imran Khan, the then Prime Minister and Patron-in-Chief of the PCB, appointed his former teammate Ramiz Raja as the chairman of the apex board.
Ramiz’s tenure as chairman was quite short but still chaotic (some good decisions, most of them really poor). Both of them (Imran and Ramiz) had a very unhealthy obsession with Australia and its cricketing structure.
Rambo’s first blood was going with the same model that Imran Khan’s, his idol, 1992 team had in terms of the coaching staff. He was against long-term coaches and believed in changing them for every tour. The Australian obsession led him to hire Matthew Hayden as a batting consultant, and Vernon Philander because he has played in Australia. Both the consultants proved to be decent during their short stint and another plus was that their salaries were paid through a strategic commercial partnership.
However, This had some negatives as well. This did not allow a new captain in the form of Babar to learn from a long-term tactical head coach like he had Misbah for some time and this is why many still consider him a weak tactical captain. Ramiz’s idea behind this was to anoint Babar with undisputed power like his idol Imran.
Later on, another project came because of Ramiz’s Australia obsession, the drop-in pitches. Ramiz thought pitches in Pakistan are especially inadequate for Test cricket, so they need to bring in drop-in pitches from Australia.
Even though, there was no need to do so, because just before him in the last few years, there had been perfectly sporting wickets in home Tests against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and South Africa.
But AUSTRALIA has drop-in pitches.
Ramiz also initiated an Age Level T20 style competition similar to the PSL, by the name of Pakistan Junior League, which was a financial failure, and criticized by former players who saw it as a technique killer for young batters. One of the players participating in it also tweeted that they did not get paid, which raised further question marks.
His idea to launch a Women’s PSL was a welcome one but that could not come to fruition as he was removed from his job as Najam Sethi, ex-chairman, took over the reins.
Najam Sethi
There is a reality that every older desi person thinks that their time was the best and will keep on telling the next generations that those were the good old days.
This tenure of Najam Sethi is the true reflection of that. He made dozens of appointments and there was only one reason behind them, he has worked with them previously and that’s his comfort zone.
This led to Sethi begging Mickey Arthur to come back as the head coach but after months of negotiations, Mickey was appointed as a technical director while also working for English County, Derbyshirt with Grant Bradburn as head coach.
Similar reasoning was behind Dr. Sohail Saleem’s rehiring even though he was sacked under Wasim Khan and Ehsan Mani’s tenure due to mismanagement. There is a long history of players’ injuries going wrong under him. He later resigned when a committee in Mohsin Naqvi’s tenure found irregularities in the treatment of Ihsanullah, Shawal Zulfiqar and a couple of others.
In the committee’s exact words: “The committee concludes that Ihsanullah’s condition of right elbow pain was not addressed, treated and operated appropriately. There was a delay in reaching the clinical diagnoses and investigations. He did not receive a formal rehabilitation process as required by his condition.”
It was also said that the injury was on Ihsanullah’s shoulder and he was also allowed to bowl earlier which worsened the injury. Ihsanullah has been forced out of cricket for 1 and a half years now, Shawaal Zulfiqar has been out of the game for the last 5 months, and now the committee’s recommendations are to do a CT scan, which is the first thing to do.
Moving on, Najam Sethi agreed to a hybrid model for the 2023 Asia Cup that had to be hosted by Pakistan. India backed out of touring Pakistan and played their games in Sri Lanka, and some other games were also played there.
This agreement did not just impact the Asia Cup but it also set a precedent for India to back out of the upcoming Champions Trophy as well.
One sentence to summarize this tenure of Sethi is Bilawal Bhutto’s: “Welcome back to the Purana Pakistan (Cricket Board)”
Zaka Ashraf
If a name had to be written with Najam Sethi’s name in the history books, it had to be Zaka Ashraf.
We went 10 years back when Zaka Ashraf came in as the PCB Chairman just because the Ministry of Inter Provisional Co-ordination went to PPPP, and PCB comes under this ministry.
In Harsha Bhogle’s words,
“We often used to say – Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Najam Sethi is Chairman PCB. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, Zaka Ashraf is chairman, and on Sunday, it’s a debate on what it should be the next week.”
He was chairman of PCB when there was the last bilateral series between India and Pakistan back in 2012, so it was expected of him that he would have good relations with the BCCI. However, just after BCCI officials went back from a visit to Pakistan, Zaka Ashraf stated in a press conference that India is an enemy country and he wanted his morale high when they are in India.
Way to go to keep good relations!
Then there is the whole Press Release issue. During his tenure, PCB issued a press release when the Pakistan team was not having a good World Cup already, which stated that the team for the tournament was selected solely by captain Babar Azam and chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq (as it should be), PCB will take some decisions in the best interest of cricket after the tournament.
This statement threw the players and the management under the bus by putting the blame solely on them as the upper management of the PCB tried to save their image, at which they failed badly.
During the same World Cup, PCB tried to break player power by starting a crackdown against Saya Corporation, a player agency that represents the then captain Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, Shaheen Afridi and the then chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq. PCB sacked Inzamam during the tournament because of a conflict of interest (apparently this is only for the players and the management and not the employees of the board)
Inzi along with Rizwan and the owner of the agency Talha Rehmani, started a side business during Covid to sell bicycle helmets in the UK. However, they have stated, that they did not earn a single rupee from that as they did not sell any.
Inzamam had to face an inquiry, but nothing came forward from that as it always has been.
Subsequently, a leaked chat between Babar and Naseer found its way to a sports journalist and was aired on television. During that panel discussion, cricketer Azhar Ali expressed concerns over the ethical implications of such public disclosure. Eventually, the show’s host apologized publicly, acknowledging that sharing the chat screenshot was a mistake.
The journalist who showed that screenshot said he got it from the chairman of PCB directly.
However, the fallout from the incident had already taken its toll.
In another twist, Chief Selector Wahab Riaz announced the use of cricketers as selection consultants, including Salman Butt, a tainted cricketer/captain. This decision stirred widespread anger among Pakistani cricket fans and the international cricketing community. However, Wahab later withdrew the choice, citing a desire to avoid favouritism.
Mohsin Naqvi
Mohsin Naqvi is the current PCB chairman as well as the country’s interior minister and senator. We at ProSports use the phrase, Mohsin of all trades instead of Jack of all trades (thank you Behram).
Forget, the conflict of interest, that doesn’t even exist in Pakistan unless it is to suit the enforcer’s benefits.
He is quite involved in the team’s planning as well the reason for which is beyond me. Even though he made a team of ex-cricketers that were the selection committee and were supposed to make all major decisions.
That selection committee also had some people who were not ex-cricketers, one of them was the data analyst, Bilal Afzal.
Bilal Afzal has no prior experience working as a data analyst in cricket, he has not worked with any franchise or domestic team on the face of the earth. Still, he was appointed as a data analyst here.
Well maybe because Bilal has worked under Mohsin Naqvi before, he had a dozen portfolios in the caretaker government in Punjab that was headed by Mohsin Naqvi, himself.
None of them, maybe the portfolio of Planning and Development has something to do with data analytics, still, that is a very low criterion for this position. There surely are people better suited to this position than Bilal Afzal.
After a lot of criticism, PCB changed the press release and Bilal was just named as a member of the selection committee, and Hassan Cheema (ex-officio member) was named as manager of analytics.
Furthermore, Mohsin Naqvi orchestrated a fitness camp at the Pakistan Military Academy, after the PSL. This camp was scheduled during Ramadan, sandwiched between the PSL and a bilateral series.
The amount of social media coverage given to the camp compared to previous ones made it appear as a state-sanctioned PR campaign, to many.
He also removed Shaheen Afridi as captain after only one series, which is a very short period to judge someone’s captaincy. Also, I believe PSL should not be considered when deciding on dropping someone from the team or in this case removing them from the captaincy.
Not just removing Shaheen, but before that publicly announcing that Shaheen’s future as a captain is in discussion without talking to Shaheen and then releasing a statement with his name that he did not say. There surely are better ways to change a captain.
One can argue this is the board making sure the player power is broken because of how this team’s bond has been especially for the last 2-3 years.
Only after a week as PCB chairman, Mohsin Naqvi also terminated Haris Rauf’s central contract because he pulled out of the Test tour of Australia. However, Rauf has only played one Test so far and he got injured after that. Rauf believed that he wanted to be given time to prepare for Test cricket and he has not played enough First-Class cricket for that.
To conclude, things in Pakistan cricket have taken a bad turn after bad turn and things will only improve when political appointments are not a part of the cricketing infrastructure of the country.
About the Author: Zaid Babar Khan
Data geek, Cricket fanatic, Haris Rauf and Lahore Qalandars fan and an article writer
