LAHORE, Jan 9: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ijaz Butt has admitted that he requested the technical members of the Governing Board to resign but added that the decision was taken after the respected members themselves expressed the will to quit in order to give the new chairman (Ijaz) the right to pick his own team.

“I have never forced any member to resign or expressed any resolve to sack them. I have great respect for all elected and technical members of the Governing Board since they all have earned big names in their respective fields and benefited the PCB with their experiences,” Ijaz told Dawn on Friday.

“In fact, when I took the charge as PCB chairman in the month of October last year and chaired the first meeting the honourable technical members voluntarily expressed their wishes to resign as they considered it as the right of the new chairman to pick new members or to retain the old ones,” he said.

“Some members have sent their resignation and some more may come but I would like to bring it in the notice of the patron of the PCB (president Asif Ali Zardari) to take any decision,” Ijaz said.

Previous PCB chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf with the consent of the former patron Pervez Musharraf formed the first Governing Board after nine years long ad hocism.

On technical seats the members who were elected included Lt. Gen (r) Munir Hafeez, Moin Afzal, Aslam Sanjarani, Ali Raza, Justice Ijaz Yousuf.

Ijaz said soon the Governing Board would be reconstituted with the permission of the patron to take major decisions and to serve national cricket.

To a question, the chairman said that the Sri Lankan tour to Pakistan, starting from Jan 18, could prove a turning point in bringing other international teams back to Pakistan and in setting aside the security problems.

“The Sri Lankan team tour will underline the fact that the two cricket boards have friendly and strong relations with each other and I would like to welcome Sri Lanka Cricket’s decision of sending the team to Pakistan,” Ijaz said.

He said excellent arrangements would be made including foolproof security to make the tour a successful one. “The PCB is already in contact with the federal as well as the provincial governments of Sindh and Punjab to provide excellent security to the Sri Lankan team,” he said.

Sri Lanka, the Asian champions, will be the first among the top ranking teams to tour Pakistan after Australia had refused to do so in April last year and later ICC postponed the Champions Trophy for one year due to the security concerns of some Test playing countries while playing in Pakistan.

“The Sri Lankan tour will also help the PCB to defend its case to retain the hosting rights of the ICC Champions Trophy to be held in September this year, so the tour is of great importance for us,” he said.

Pakistan had invited Sri Lanka soon after India refused to tour Pakistan from Jan 4, mainly due to tense political relations between the two neighboring countries. Though SLC had responded to the PCB’s request swiftly and positively to tour Pakistan in place of India, later a change in the SLC had put the tour in doldrums. But government-to-government contact made the Sri Lankan president allow his team to tour Pakistan.