PCB’s high-profile cricket committee quietly ends

Karachi: The PCB has quietly dissolved the high-profile cricket committee, but no formal announcement has been made in this regard.

In October 2018, PCB had established a cricket committee headed by Mohsin Hasan Khan, its task was to give opinions on cricketing matters, Wasim Akram and Misbah-ul-Haq were also included in the members. Because the former opener had been giving harsh statements about him, after only 3 meetings in 8 months, Mohsin Khan left the post.

Board officials were unhappy with some of his statements, the then chairman Ehsan Mani appointed CEO Wasim Khan as the head of the committee, later Misbah himself became the head coach even though the removal of Mickey Arthur was recommended by the cricket committee. In December 2020, former wicketkeeper Saleem Yusuf was appointed as the Chairperson of the Cricket Committee.

The members included Ali Naqvi (Representative Match Officials), Umar Gul (Representative Current Cricketers), Asmavia Iqbal (Representative Women’s Cricketers), Wasim Akram (Representative Former Cricketers), Zakir Khan (Director International PCB) and Nadeem Khan (Director High Performance).

After the team’s disappointing tour of New Zealand, coaches Misbah-ul-Haq and Waqar Younis were also invited to the January 2021 meeting, supporting them “for now” and also asking them to keep an eye on South Africa’s performance in the series. A few months later, both of them resigned on their own, feeling that the nominated chairman, Ramiz Raja, would sack them after assuming office.

Ramez saw fit to use the Governing Board’s rubber stamp for major decisions, although it was never officially announced that the Cricket Committee had been abolished.

When contacted in this regard, the spokesperson of PCB said that the committee was dissolved a year ago with the approval of the governing board. Yes, surprisingly the cricket committee is still mentioned on the PCB website.

It was not clear why the mention of the committee was not removed from the website if it was abolished a year ago.