Cricket reshuffle

There is a lot happening in Pakistan cricket with the reset button getting pressed again. Soon after England became the first touring team to whitewash the hosts in a Test series on Pakistani soil, the government got into action as it removed Ramiz Raja as chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and instead appointed a 14-member management committee headed by former chairman Najam Sethi to run the PCB’s affairs for 120 days. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who is the PCB’s chief patron, has also revoked the 2019 constitution of the board. He has given full executive powers to the management committee to revive the constitution of 2014. The writing has been on the wall for Ramiz, who was handpicked by former prime minister Imran Khan to head the PCB in September 2021, ever since Imran lost power earlier this year. It seems the Test debacle against England turned out to be the final nail. Unsurprisingly, the new PCB setup has decided to go for wholesale changes right from the word go. On Friday, the management committee took its first big step when it sacked chief selector Mohammad Wasim. The new PCB has also disbanded all committees.

As the new setup celebrates their return to power, they must know that their job is a tough one. One of the reasons the government has asked them to work on reviving the constitution of 2014 is because its revival will pave the path for the revival of departmental cricket in the domestic setup. That ban on departmental cricket was put into place on the instructions of Imran Khan soon after he took over as prime minister. Imran wanted Pakistan to follow Australia’s domestic model with just six provincial teams taking part in major competitions. That plan was implemented amid a lot of hue and cry as hundreds of cricketers lost their jobs. The management committee will need to work on reviving departmental cricket but that won’t be easy since most of the leading departments have disbanded their teams. And in the current recession most of them won’t be willing to revive them.

Under Sethi’s command the PCB will also have to work on the declining performance of the national cricket team especially in the red-ball format. Pakistan have lost four consecutive Tests at home, something that has never happened in the past. Both the players and the officials including coaches Saqlain Mushtaq and Mohammad Yousuf have been under intense criticism – and not without reason. It remains to be seen whether the new chair and the committee are up to the task. Already, it has lost two of its most prominent members – Shahid Afridi and Sana Mir. Afridi has opted to stay out citing his charity work while Sana declined to join as she was recently named as independent director by the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA). Soon after taking over, Sethi talked about a “famine’ in Pakistan cricket. He also announced that the famine would now be over. For that, concrete steps will be needed to bring about a positive change.