Bringing Test-playing teams to country top priority: PCB MD

LAHORE: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Managing Director Wasim Khan on Sunday said bringing Test-playing teams to the country remains his top priority, as he reiterated the need to revive international cricket here.

Wasim, while addressing a press conference in Lahore along with PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani, said all efforts were being made to fully restore international cricket in Pakistan. “We are targetting Test-playing nations. T20 cricket alone cannot achieve the goal of restoring international cricket here,” he said.

The newly appointed managing director, who most recently served as the chief executive of Leicestershire County Cricket Club, acknowledged the need for improvement in domestic cricket structure in order to bring consistency in the national team’s performance.

"Our actual problem is at the grassroots, in the system," Wasim said, adding that the system wasn’t strong and the outcome was visible in the performance of the cricket team, particularly in Tests.

He pointed out that any long-term change would take time to implement, and that the results would not be visible in mere six months’ time.

He added that the PCB's job was to examine the system of domestic cricket and strengthen cricket at the grass roots.

PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani, addressing the press conference, praised Wasim Khan’s contributions to cricket and said that he brings a wealth of experience and leadership skills to the board.

Mani acknowledged that Pakistan’s domestic cricket structure was lacking in quality, and vowed to implement steps to strengthen it.

Wasim is a holder of Masters Degree from the world renowned Warwick Business School. He became the first British-born Pakistani to be awarded a professional contract when he signed for Warwickshire in 1995

Wasim also played for Sussex and Derbyshire and ended his six-year first-class career with 58 first-class and 2,835 runs; scoring five hundreds and 19 fifties with a highest score of 181.

Wasim became Leicestershire CCC CEO in 2015 and in doing so became the first South Asian CEO in the history of first class cricket in England.

During his four-year tenure time, Leicestershire CCC achieved most of its five-year Business Plan objectives. These included recording three successive years of net profits following years of losses, spearheading infrastructure development, organizational change programme and hosting ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 matches (Pakistan v India fixture included)

Wasim was one of the leaders who led the project to drive British Asians into English cricket

He was the only CEO of black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) heritage at any professional sports club in the country

In addition to his administrative roles within cricket, Wasim also sat on the Equality & Human Rights Commission Sports Group, The Prince’s Trust Cricket Group and the Board of Sport England.

Wasim’s autobiography ‘Brim Full of Passion’ won the Wisden Book of the Year in 2006 and as CEO, he developed and ran chance to Shine, a £50 scheme get to cricket into schools. After 9 years, 55 million pounds had been raised and 2.5 million girls (including 1 million girls) had been engaged across 9,000 state run schools.

In April 2018, Wasim was appointed chair of the ECB’s Men’s Domestic Playing Programme Group, with the goal ofrestructuring the domestic game from 2020. All recommendations were adopted by the ECB Board.

Wasim was one of the favourite’s to be appointed Managing Director of the England cricket team following Andrew Strauss’s resignation.

Wasim was recently named in the Parliamentary Review Muslim 100 Power List

In 2013, Wasim was awarded MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for his services to cricket and communities.