Unlike most of the 10 Test-playing nations, the Pakistan
Cricket Board has been run on an ad-hoc basis for more than a decade. The past
five chairmen were: A politician, a general, a retired diplomat, a technocrat,
and a retired Test cricketer.
There was just one thing all these men shared: They were
directly appointed by the Pakistan president of the time, who is also the
all-powerful patron-in-chief of the PCB. He enjoys sweeping powers and can
change the board with a stroke of his pen.
Incumbent PCB chief Ijaz Butt had a modest record as an
international cricketer, but his brother-in-law Ahmad Mukhtar is a defense
minister in the present government of the Pakistan Peoples Party. It was no
surprise when the then 70-year-old Butt got the PCB post when the government
came to power in 2008 under Asif Zardari.
The governing board includes eight direct appointees of the
president with six representatives of associations and departments. Even the
appointment of the associations' and departments' representatives required
Zardari's approval.
This undemocratic setup has finally caught the eye of the
ICC, which has urged all cricket nations to remove government interference in
the sport's administration; mirroring the approach taken by the International
Olympic Committee and football's governing body FIFA.
The ICC gave the PCB the final report by the Pakistan Task
Team, a body set up in the wake of the terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team
bus and security convoy in 2009, and which boasted the likes of former England
captain Mike Brearley and ex-Australia captain Greg Chappell.
Since that terrorist attack, Pakistan has not been able to
host any international tours and was stripped of co-hosting rights for this
year's World Cup.
Key among the task team's recommendations was the removal of
the country's president as patron and an end to politically driven appointees,
but unsurprisingly this was resisted by the powers-that-be at the PCB.
The PCB said it refused to accept that its administrative
setup was "faulty" and rejected introducing elections for chairman.
"The circumstances in Pakistan are unique and cricket
administration requires and deserves government support without which
international cricket may not be able to return to Pakistan," the PCB said
in its response to the ICC.
"Keeping in view the extraordinary security situation
in the country, having the president as patron of PCB adds tremendous value and
comfort."
Cricket analysts in Pakistan believe that the PCB had not
recognized the gravity of the matter and the urgency for change.
"It's a very grim situation," says Zakir Hussain
Syed, a veteran cricket analyst, who has worked as a development officer for
the Asian Cricket Council. "They (PCB) are not realizing that if they
continue to adopt a confrontation policy with the ICC it will cause a mess and
damage will be serious."
Syed said "the sensible thing to do is to implement
those recommendations" in the task team's report.
However, what is good for Pakistan cricket may not be the
same thing as what is good for Butt and other PCB officeholders.
The ICC has also made it mandatory for all the cricket
boards to bring in elected heads within two years. This gives Butt enough time
to see out his tenure without doing much to reform the PCB.
Butt's term ends in October and he himself is not sure
whether he will be at the helm of the PCB after that.
"It all depends on my boss and we will see how things
go when the time comes," Butt said in a recent television interview.
There are some cricket associations — like Karachi City
Cricket Association, — which often criticize Butt's policies. However, thus far
nothing has been done collectively by the local associations, including those
from other big cities like Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
"They (associations) all have vested interests and need
the financial support of the PCB," said an official of a cricket
association on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to
media.
The task team's report was presented to the executive board
meeting of the ICC last month and PCB chief operating officer Subhan Ahmed got
a copy of it one week before that meeting was held in Hong Kong.
"(Subhan Ahmed made) only minor observations which were
incorporated into the final report," ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat
said.
In a country where now there's no sports ministry, Syed
believes there's virtually no hope of reforming the PCB.
"There's no authoritative institution in the country to
look into the system so who could try and help in electing chairman of the
PCB?" Syed asked.
