We will rethink our stance towards private leagues: Mani

DUBAI: In recent times, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has been trigger-happy when it came to allowing leading national players to feature in the various professional leagues that continue to pop up every now and then, writes Khalid Hussain.

The Board even allowed national players to become part of various privately-owned leagues in some cases in return for paltry sums from the owners.

But under Pakistan’s new cricket chief Ehsan Mani, things could change.

On Saturday, Mani made it clear that he would carry out a thorough scrutiny of the various leagues before allowing his players to participate in them.

“I don’t understand the rationale behind the decision to allow our players to participate in privately-owned leagues,” he told a select group of Pakistani journalists in a meeting here The Grosvenor House in Dubai Marina.

“I’m amazed that at the PCB, we don’t have any single piece of document proving that these leagues are authentic,” the PCB chairman said.

“I don’t know how credible these private leagues are.

“But we are now examining all these leagues. We will have to carry our diligence because we can’t take any risks.”

Before Mani took over, PCB had allowed its players to take part in the second edition of the T10 league to be played in November in Sharjah. The T10 league is a privately-owned league. Under Najam Sethi, PCB came under criticism for allowing its players to take part in the inaugural T20 league last year. Sethi had defended his decision by saying that PCB received US$400,000 in return for development projects. For this year’s edition, PCB is set to receive US$600,000 for providing NOCs to its players.

“That money is peanuts,” said Mani. “We have to protect our players. 400,000 dollars or 600,000 dollars is nothing. We can’t compromise on Pakistan’s reputation,” he stressed.

Mani also believes that the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) has erred by scheduling of the Super Fours stage of the ongoing Asia Cup. The ACC, of which Mani is the president, came under fire for allowing India to play all its matches in Dubai at a time when the other three teams – Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan – were made to travel between Dubai and Abu Dhabi for the various games.

“The Asia Cup itinerary is unbalanced. But it was prepared way before I came in. It’s been done. We should learn from such mistakes so that we don’t commit similar mistakes again,” he said.