LAHORE: Former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Zaka Ashraf has demanded sacking of the entire support staff of the national team besides dissolving the national selection committee and PCB cricket committee after the pathetic performance of the team which lost the T20 series to New Zealand in Wellington on Friday.

“The main think tank, comprising selectors, support staff and the cricket committee is responsible for the debacle of our team in New Zealand and they all should be sacked immediately for the awful display,” Zaka told Dawn after Pakistan’s thrashing in the final T20 by 95 runs.

“It is ironic that even the cricket committee, which is responsible for drafting the policies, is headed by a non-cricketer like Shakeel Shaikh, so what else can you expect?” he asked. “Moreover, no cricketer is part of the governing board and the two players who were holding domestic and international cricket (Intikhab Alam and Zakir Khan) have been removed while other non-cricket people are still working as directors in the PCB,” he lamented.

He said he was also at a loss to understand who is running the PCB as two clear lobbies of chairman Shaharyar M Khan and Najam Sethi are working in the PCB. “Both Shaharyar and Sethi neither have any experience in the game of cricket nor in administration, so why are they at the helm in the PCB,” questioned Zaka.

He said the decision to appoint Shahid Afridi as T20 captain till 2016 was a short-sighted one and as Mohammad Hafeez would have the best choice for the job. “I did not appoint Afridi as captain, though he is a good cricketer,” said Zaka. “I believe he should play without any pressure of the captaincy. I had appointed Hafeez as captain and still I believe he is the best choice.”

When asked under Hafeez captaincy Pakistan also failed to deliver in the last T20 World Cup as it could not qualify for the semifinals, Zaka said then PCB chairman Sethi did not give Hafeez due support as the chairman had made promised with five other cricketers as new captain if Hafeez failed to deliver in the World Cup.

“It is not the job of the PCB to sabotage the unity of the team, but to support it but I believe Hafeez has lost that support of Sethi during last World Cup,” he said.

He, however, said the time was not appropriate to change the captain as the World Cup was just round the corner, but the PCB still have the time to change its think-tank management altogether, which has been working with the national team for the last two years but has not given good results.

Zaka said for the last one year the national selection committee has been making the wholesale changes in its T20 squad on the pretext that it is testing different combination to pick the final line up for the World T20 Cup.

“This team was the final line up of the selectors for the World Cup, after doing so many experiments. But the New Zealand series loss should be eye-opener for everyone to also guess what will be results in the World Cup,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2015