Associate members not invited to AGM

KARACHI: No associate member of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has been invited to the annual general meeting of PCB, scheduled to be held in Lahore on Tuesday (today), ‘The News’ learnt on Monday.
Sources connected to the associate members of the PCB said that it was the first time that they had not been invited to this important meeting.
According to the PCB constitution, the heads of the sports wings of departments playing Grade-II cricket for five years are entitled to participate in the meeting. The most notable of the teams playing Grade II cricket are Navy, Customs, K-Electric, KPT and Services Industries.
Former Test cricketer Jalaluddin, who heads Customs cricket wing, confirmed that he had not been invited to the annual general meeting.
Jalal said that he kept asking PCB officials, including Saqib Irfan, Manager Domestic Cricket, about invitation to the meeting for two days after which he was informed that representatives of Grade II teams were not entitled to participate in the annual general meeting according to the PCB’s new constitution. He said it was surprising for him as he had participated in the last meeting as a representative of Customs. If PCB had amended the constitution all associate members should have been informed.
Jalal said it was astonishing that those teams which had been playing domestic cricket for a long time and were only one step away from first class cricket were being kept away from decision making process.
He said the representatives of these teams knew everything about cricket at the grassroots level and had the ability to inform the PCB high-ups about the areas where improvement was needed.
Keeping the officials of so many teams away would create a communication gap which would hurt the country’s cricket in the long run, he said.
Jalal has been running Customs team and its academy for a long time.
Customs team has been in the domestic cricket since 1987 and has played first class cricket for 12 years since then.
Jalal said he and other Grade II teams’ officials would gather and discuss the situation soon after the meeting.