LAHORE: Slamming the incumbent Pakistan Cricket Board set-up that has brought one disaster after the other including the World T20 debacle, former PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf has appealed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to dissolve the Shaharyar Khan-led regime to salvage Pakistan cricket.

“The current set-up has completely destroyed Pakistan cricket and therefore, the prime minister should dissolve it for our cricket to move ahead, and this can be done by adopting the constitution which was approved by the ICC, and not the current one, which was revisedby Najam Sethi to serve his own interests,” Zaka said while commenting on the fresh fiasco that led to Pakistan’s embarrassing ouster from the ongoing World Twenty20.

Holding Sethi who has major control of PCB affairs as its executive committee head primarily responsible for Pakistan cricket disaster, Zaka reckoned chairman Shaharyar Khan had just become a ‘signing machine’.

However, when underlined that while the Sethi-led committee was a recommending authority, the chairman had the powers to undone its recommendations, Zaka believed Shaharyar had no courage to go against Sethi’s recommendations as in fact the later was the chairman.

“On two occasions, Shaharyar tried to minimise the role of Moin Khan as chief selector, who is a buddy of Sethi, but he could not do it. Finally, no one could defend Moin after the case of casino emerged [in New Zealand during the 2015 World Cup] through social media,” recalled Zaka.

Zaka Ashraf claims a ‘strongman’ behind Afridi delaying decision on international career

He also slammed the PCB stance for investigating national T20 team’s failures in recent international contests.

“The funniest approach of the present PCB regime is that Shakeel Sheikh, the cricket committee head, has been named to lead a body to investigate the reasons behind flops at the Asia Cup T20 and the World T20. Instead he should have been also made accountable for these failures.”

Lamenting the incumbent PCB set-up has ruined Pakistan’s domestic cricket, Zaka said it was extremely surprising that there was no cricketer was on the Board of Governors, which should be PCB’s prime think-tank.

“During my tenure, Javed Miandad and Intikhab Alam were dealing with cricketing affairs whereas now there is no cricketer working on any major position in the PCB,” he underlined.

Responding to a question on Afridi’s future in international cricket, the former chairman claimed that a strong person of the country was on the backing of the experienced all-rounder.

“If Afridi is delaying his final decision about retirement, I think he [Afridi] just wants to consult that strongman. I can’t mention the name of that person,” said Zaka.

As PCB chief, Zaka said, he had categorically told Afridi that he could not be named as captain but could continue to represent the team as a playing member. “But the present Board appointed him captain and that was amazing,” he said.

He said if Afridi wanted to continue his game as a playing member, the PCB in order to help him remove his faults should engage him in a rehabilitation process at the National Cricket Academy.

“During my tenure, Afridi underwent two-month rehabilitation at the NCA after which he showed remarkable improvement. I will also advise the same rehabilitation process for Umar Akmal, Ahmed Shehzad and others, and if they fail to bring any improvement [in their game] then say good bye to them forever,” Zaka suggested.

Meanwhile, Zaka said the PCB after spending a huge Rs1 billion in organising the inaugural Pakistan Super League in the UAE earlier this year, was yet to disclose the profit/loss from the league.

Terming PCB’s financial position as alarming, Zaka said when he took charge as PCB chief from his predecessor Ijaz Butt the Board reserves stood at Rs4 billion, and when he left the Board the reserves had jumped to Rs5 billion.

Zaka lamented that the PCB employees earning salary of around Rs20,000 were sacked in the name of austerity campaign while on the other hand many employees costing the Board Rs500,000 each were inducted.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2016