Will the real chairman please stand up!

January 19, 2014

Will the real chairman please stand up!

Just when you thought it couldn’t get more complicated, it has. All that is needed now is for Tauqir Zia to march into Gaddafi Stadium and start calling the shots. After all a general never retires, he just goes and plays golf until his country needs him.

Perhaps Sheheryar Khan can walk in too saying he was put under emotional distress by first Inzamam-ul-Haq and then by Younis Khan otherwise he would still be working from morning to noon. His case is that he was called for duty anyway by the IMC. By now Dr Nasim Ashraf must be screaming at his travel agent why he hasn’t got him on a plane yet. While he’s here he’ll also be able to tell his general that what’s happening to him is just not cricket so he’ll get it all sorted out once he’s re-ensconced into his hereditary right. I’m sure he’s by now contacted Shoaib Akhtar to be his spokesman considering the brotherhood they shared before Rehman Malik created misunderstandings between the two.

No doubt Ijaz Butt has started consulting his orthopedic surgeon to order his knees restored so he can get back and start abusing everyone in Punjabi. Chaos had never been the same since he left as he couldn’t take life without Yawar Saeed at the Gaddafi Stadium.

It’s a good opportunity for Arif Abbasi to reopen the case of the kidnapped plot next to the National Stadium which rightfully belonged to PCB before they built houses on it for a few worthy men. This would be the perfect time as no one would be able to lodge a reply on behalf of PCB because no one knows who the chairman is. Three absences from appearances and Abbasi would be able drive a bulldozer himself.

Imagine the plight of the PCB executives especially those who had been burning Najam Sethi’s ears about all that had been messed up by Zaka Ashraf. The walls have ears and the words will reach him before he can get out of his car inside the Gaddafi compound.

I’m sure the directors are tripping over each other to be seen rolling the carpet for Caesar’s return. I hear that Ustaad Nusrat Fateh Ali’s voice is already reverberating through the public address system at the ground singing "maira baba ghar aaya…"

On a more serious level this running between the wickets by the courts shouting "yes-no-go" must put Inzamam and Yousuf in the league of Jonty Rhodes in getting away with an impossible second.

Watching the last six months unfold, they would rather go back to sorting out their Rubic’s Cube than make sense of the emerging situation here. For that matter they’ve probably filed PCB under ‘basket case’.

If this issue is not resolved by this Sunday and ICC refuses to give more extension of the date in which PCB has to submit the names of its U19 squad to play the Junior World Cup, it could mean fines or even a brief suspension of PCB. I suppose in every subsequent meeting of the PCB Board of Governors the ICC would like to see some identification before the Pakistani delegation enters the conference room; perhaps even an NOC from the government that they can proceed to mess up our cricket on the nation’s behalf.

I remember that there was a time in Turkey and then in Brazil where menu prices could change by the time your ordered food arrived at your table. Similarly, we can expect that the chairman who leaves for the meeting in Dubai may not be chairman by the time the flight lands. And to think these people reprimand the players for creating groupings and campaigning for the captaincy.

In my opinion there is only one way to resolve this crisis and that is the ‘Kakar way’. Talk to Zaka Ashraf, Najam Sethi and all regional heads separately and tell them to step down otherwise external auditors will descend in their regions and physically inspect all the clubs registered with them, how the grants have been spent over the past three years and the attendance register. It won’t take a day for everyone to step down.

Then throw out the constitution because PCB is registered as an entity that is to be governed through Memorandum and Articles of Association. These Memorandum and Articles are available with the PCB. They either don’t want anyone to know about it or have no idea what and where they are. If confused, they can call Arif Abbasi who’ll locate them in 10 minutes. In fact he must be having a copy as they were made during his tenure when PCB was restructured.

Someone never having been attached with the PCB or association should be recommended as interim PCB Chairman with instructions to register every Association with a clean slate and hold elections. The interim chairman can sign an affidavit that he will not stay beyond six months and if he does he will first have to pass the ten day survival course in Abbottabad. The elections will be held on time, believe me.

If this impasse is not resolved immediately, I fear that something will snap somewhere. It can be in Rawalpindi or it can be in Dubai.

Someone better tell the pretenders to the throne the story of two crows sitting on a tree arguing on how to equally share the bread they’ve found, and end up throwing it down to the fox below to arbitrate. I mean that for I fear that pretty soon there may be a situation where there will be plenty of crows on the trees around Gaddafi Stadium but no bread.

Will the real chairman please stand up!