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The Senate Committee for Sports will summon top Pakistani cricket officials for a meeting in Islamabad next week over the “poor shape of national cricket”, a committee member said on Tuesday.

Senator Enver Baig told this correspondent from Islamabad that the committee would grill the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf for a delay in implementation of a new constitution as well as the “continuing mess in national cricket”.

Baig said that he would wait for the Committee chairman to convene the meeting for a few days before making a requisition early next week for a session with the PCB officials.

“I believe the PCB officials want to take the whole nation for a ride,” said the outspoken Baig, who pointed out that the Board has failed to sort out internal problems since The Oval Test fiasco last August.

“Our cricket has been gripped in controversies since The Oval Test fiasco and has been bringing Pakistan in international headlines for all the wrong reasons. Personally, I believe the PCB is responsible for it,” said Baig.

Baig said that Pakistan got bad publicity over the doping scandal involving fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif.

“The Board made a mockery of the issue by first banning the players and later clearing them. Just recently Shahid Afridi was banned for misconduct. We fail to understand why our cricket team manages to attract so many scandals,” he expressed.

Baig also took a swipe at the Board for spending “millions” on a foreign sports lawyer. “The Board paid Mark Gay, a British lawyer 250,000 pounds to fight Inzamam-ul-Haq’s case after The Oval forfeiture and later asked him to come to Pakistan to help get Shoaib and Asif cleared of doping charges without the consent of (appeals committee head) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim and later paid the lawyer 43,000 pounds. We want to know why the Board is lavishly spending public funds,” said the Senator.

He also criticised Dr Ashraf for failing to fulfil his promise regarding the implementation of a new PCB constitution.

“Ashraf promised in front of the (Senate) committee that the new PCB constitution would be implemented by January 31 but two weeks have passed since that deadline but he did not even have the courtesy of letting us know why the issue is still unaddressed,” he explained.

Baig added: “Instead the PCB chairman has been holidaying in South Africa on public funds.”

He said that President Pervez Musharraf, PCB’s chief patron, will have to take notice of Pakistan’s poor showing in the lead up to next month’s World Cup.

“The World Cup is just weeks away and the current performance of Pakistan is pathetic. The President needs to take a serious look at the situation,” he added.
Source:The News