KCCA president walks out of meeting

KCCA president Professor Ijaz Ahmed Farooqui walked out of the PCB Governing Board meeting on Friday in protest against the draft system for regional cricket teams in the next season.

A heated debate occurred during the meeting between Farooqui and chairman domestic cricket committee Shakil Sheikh, ‘The News’ learnt. Informed sources said that the meeting was running smoothly before the last point of the agenda of the meeting was raised for discussion. The KCCA president said the new system would be disastrous for regional cricket teams.

“What would be the benefit of senior inter-district cricket championships organised by PCB where players show their skills? When their positions would be in hand of those who select the players through drafting system, what would be the future of regional cricketers,” Farooqui said.

He also said that only one team was allowed to represent Karachi in first class cricket and even then many of its players were to be selected through draft system. “It will be totally unjust to the regional players,” he said. He said that Karachi should have two teams as its population exceeded 20 million. “The city is being treated like small cities,” he said.

The PCB high officials offered that the proposal could be turned around whereby 12 players would be selected by the regional selection committee. But the KCCA president did not change his stance and rejected the draft system in its totality.

He said all 20 players should be selected by the regional selection committees to “save the future of the younger generation of cricketers”. Farooqui said that Shakil wanted to run Karachi’s cricket through his “agents”.