‘PCB-KCCA confrontation to hurt domestic cricket’

KARACHI: It is the cricket committee of PCB that changed the format which it itself had designed only eight months ago to hide its wrongdoings, cricket organisers told ‘The News’ on Sunday.
It is the brainchild of a few narrow-minded PCB officials and the top PCB officials have nothing to do with this, they said.
They are now threatening to set up an ad hoc body for running the affairs of the city, which will have adverse effects on the country’s cricket atmosphere, they added.
KCCA joint secretary Jameel Ahmed said it should be decided who was right and who was wrong. “Those PCB cricket committee officials who created and changed formats thrice in four years,” he said.
He said the committee changed its own format after just eight months although it had assured all domestic teams of the country that the format would be implemented for three years.
Jameel said that the PCB cricket committee had been exposed. “They can’t resolve the issues of domestic cricket and if we ask for the rationale of these frequent changes they threaten to set up an ad hoc body,” he said.
The KCCA joint secretary said that departments could not go all out against PCB because they were government entity but regions would not tolerate the injustice to cricketers who would be deprived of playing first-class cricket.
Jameel said the PCB bosses were doing a marvelous job, Pakistan team was improving a lot, but unfortunately a few people had created a mess.
He said PCB had set up ad hoc bodies for KCCA thrice in the past but each time KCCA had won. “KCCA cannot be suppressed by force as it is the question of more than 50 cricketers’ careers,” he said.
An official of a departmental cricket team, which is being pressurised to play the qualifying round, said it was incomprehensible why PCB cricket committee was creating “this confrontation” between regions and departments.
“With the same system, Pakistan team defeated Australia 2-0, England 3-0, and Sri Lanka at their home ground in all formats, so what is the problem?” asked the official.
Sources said that some PCB officials were making a big mistake because their pressure tactics would further increase the differences in the coming days.
Meanwhile, some former officials of Rawalpindi Cricket Association have demanded that PM Nawaz Sharif order an inquiry against the PCB for conducting an illegal and unconstitutional election for the region.
The former officials made these accusations at a press conference a few days ago.
“It means that all is not well in the PCB as other regions have also serious complains,” said an official.
Masood Anwer, a former international cricketer, termed the region’s election illegal and said that PCB kept everyone in the dark and did not make the election schedule public in order to favour a particular group. The PCB did not upload the election schedule on its website, he said.
Anwer alleged that Naeem Akhtar Gilani and Zulfiqar Mir were elected unopposed as RCA president and secretary.
The former office-bearer said that they enjoyed support of over 40 out of the 52 clubs and that their clubs were being ignored by PCB for their opposition to a journalist. The PCB silently held the polls which were not elections but selections, he added.