The three-year contract of the current chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Ehsan Mani is set to expire on August 24. Meanwhile, several reports have claimed that Pakistan’s former cricketer-turned-commentator Ramiz Raja will become the next PCB chief.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is also patron-in-chief of the board, reportdley met Ehsan Mani and Rameez Raja at the Prime Minister’s office.
Mani’s current term is due to end on August 25, though he has recently said he intends to continue in the post. Whether he does or does not, however, has become the subject of intense speculation in recent days.
Ehsan Mani’s 3-year tenure
During his term, Ehsan Mani revamped the functioning of the PCB, redrafting the board’s constitution to bring it in line with the practices of corporate governance. Until 2019, the PCB chairperson could also act as CEO, which gave them the power to implement whichever of the board’s policies they thought were fit.
The PCB under Mani also brought in enormous changes in the domestic structure, dismantling the previous mix of departmental and regional cricket and implementing the provincial-team model at PM Imran’s insistence.
The change sparked country-wide outrage with the new system costing several players their livelihoods, but the PCB eventually created jobs for all veteran cricketers at the association level, offering them opportunities on various scales.
Mani has also put in place a through review of Pakistan cricket’s biggest revenue-generating product, the Pakistan Super League, and faces a time crunch to revise the financial model of the league.
Ramiz Raja’s career
Raja, a renowned commentator now, played 255 International matches for Pakistan from 1984 to 1997. He scored 2833 Test runs at an average of 31.83 and 5841 ODI runs at 32.09. He recorded over 10,000 first-class and more than 9000 List-A runs during his 19-year domestic career.
What are the expectations?
The Prime Minister is also patron of the PCB and the constitutional authority who has a say in who becomes board chairperson. The ten-member governing board also includes four independent members, three provisional cricket association heads, and the chief executive officer.
The patron’s office has already named a former supreme court judge, Justice (retired) Sheikh Azmat, as the commissioner to carry out the election of the PCB chairperson. Mani was previously the only candidate to have submitted his nomination papers for the post, and all members of the Board of Governors unanimously voted for him to head the PCB.
According to sources, Prime Minister Imran Khan will recommend two names for the governing board which includes Raja and Dr. Jawad Sajid Khan, chairman of the Lahore Gymkhana. One of these will be elected for the role of PCB chairman.
Sarfraz Nawaz’s objection
Former fast bowler Sarfraz Nawaz has written to Prime Minister Imran Khan to nominate either Zaheer Abbas or Majid Khan as next chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), while urging him against the possible appointment of Ramiz Raja.
In a letter, he wrote, “If the news about your approval for appointment of Ramiz Raja as next chairman PCB is true, who blatantly and shamelessly advised Pakistan to become shameless by accepting the Indian supremacy and domination in the ICC and so much so that Ramiz said that we should leave aside Pakistan in surrendering before the Indian hegemonist plan to rule the cricketing world through monopoly in the ICC.”
Sarfraz said in the past Ramiz had acted as advisor of former PCB chairman retired Lt Gen Tauqir Zia, and when Pakistan failed to qualify for the Super Six stage of the 2003 ICC World Cup, instead of showing Ramiz the door, Tauqir appointed him as the PCB chief executive.
