A joke and a conundrum called Pakistan Cricket Board

Raju Korti
If as an avid cricket administration follower you tend to believe that governing boards across cricket playing nations, including our own BCCI back home, are self-styled and run by whimsical people, look at what is happening in Pakistan. The Pakistan Cricket Control Board (PCCB) leaves no stone unturned to jealously guards its reputation as a  long-standing joke, its chairmen replaced with every change of government. The embers of the unseemly controversy refuse to die down even after a regime change and barbs keep flying thick and fast. The unceremonious chucking out of former player and commentator-turned Chairman Ramiz Raja is a case in point.

In Pakistan, nothing seems to go right in any sphere of life as murky politics creeps in at all junctures. Cricket is no exception. It is a virtual free-for-all with players, organisers, governing bodies and self-proclaimed experts constantly engaged in leg pull and rabid criticism of each other. It is as confusing as it is amusing to know who is with whom and who opposes who. The abysmal state of affairs has now taken on the hue of a civil war.

Ramiz Raja is pissed with the way he has been shown the gate and to an extent, one sympathises with him. That is no way to ask the board chairman to eff off especially when he has had a fairly decent stint in different capacities of the game. But Ramiz, normally a subdued man, has lost his cool and his intemperate outbursts have expectedly not gone down well with the board's new management committee which is now headed by journalist Najam Sethi. One wonders whether Sethi, who has had three brief stints in the past as the president/chairman, knows what he has walked into given the mercurial atmosphere that obtains in Pakistan cricket.

The 3-0 whitewash at home from the Englishmen in the recently concluded series signed the death knell for Ramiz although in all fairness, it is befuddling how a mere change in administration can turn teams into winning outfits. Sethi has been brought in by changing the Constitution which happens in Pakistan at the drop of a hat. As Ramiz let loose a verbal fusillade at Sethi on social media platforms and TV, the PCCB swung into action and decided to sue the sacked chief . "The PCCB believes former chairman Mr Raja's comments are aimed at tarnishing and damaging the impeccable reputation of present chairman Mr Sethi, adding it reserves its rights to pursue legal proceedings to protect and defend the image and credibility of its chairman and the institution", the board said in a statement.

That begs the question, what image and what credibility are they talking about when the history of the board is replete with bizarre and arbitrary functioning, its administrators chosen and thrown out for reasons anything but plausible. Right since the mid-50s the PCCB has been in a state of flux, turmoil and wrangling with a series of ad hoc committees named to run the administration.

Since its revamp in the 70s, PCCB has seen the domination of businessmen from Lahore and Karachi with a couple of army officers thrown in to tinker with its Constitution. Earlier, its military head Ayub Khan had made a record of sorts imposing three vice presidents, he himself being one of them, setting the trend to run the board by proxy much like the way the entire country is run by the army in the guise of elected representatives. The match-fixing allegations in 1999 turned the entire establishment topsy turvy. The wheel keeps turning a full circle and Sethi who was hand-picked by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif after dissolving the existing board, also exited. 

Random and irrational changes often made at the instances of vested interests in the powers that be have had debilitating consequences on the players at all levels of the game. The structure of domestic cricket in Pakistan has seen a non-stop roller coaster ride since the country found an independent identity on the world map in 1947. Historically, school and club cricket has also suffered as the top tiers bleed with inadequacies. The games hardly got the marketing boost, unlike in India (the other extreme end) and matches were/are rarely televised due to lack of quality cricket and lack of interest in departmental cricket. Like the proverbial question "egg first or the hen", it is debatable whether these shortcomings were because of lack of interest or it was the lack of interest that saw no efforts at promotion. The tiered structure of administration has never had the time to settle down and bring about any reforms which is a pity for a country that has produced some of the greatest talent in world cricket.

Ramiz's exit is the latest in the string of controversy-dogged Pakistan cricket. He was thrown out at 2 in the early morning by Sethi through a tweet and according to him, he was not even allowed time to take his belongings from the board office. "It was as if I had committed some crime and I would take some incriminating evidence from the office. What tamasha is this? They have come just to enjoy themselves. The new committee is not going to do do Pakistan cricket any good. This is nothing but political vendetta," he fumed, drawing parallels between his and Sethi's administration . While the words 'political vendetta' sum up the general state of affairs in Pakistan, at the roots of the bickering is also issues arising out of financial expenditures.

Since his ouster, Ramiz has been spitting fire at all and sundry including his own former team-mates Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, saying if he had his way, he would have bundled them out in the wake of the Justice Qayyum Committee report on match-fixing allegations in Pakistan. It is not difficult to put two and two together that Ramiz's provocative retaliation also comes from the uncharitable remarks Wasim Akram made against him in his book released recently.   

For good or bad, Ramiz no longer holds the reins. All his grandiose plans to rejuvenate Pakistan cricket have been effectively laid to rest. All he can do now, without any fear of reprisals, is to vent his frustration at India. While there will not be many tears shed for him, one can only wait and watch -- and perhaps guess -- where does Sethi go from here. In Pakistan, tables turn disconcertingly often to turn the sympathiser to sympathised and vice versa. Bring on Ramiz Raja or Wasim Raja, it doesn't matter, Apathy, caprice and high-handedness are the king in a country on whose chessboard the King gets reduced to Pawn and the Pawn catapulted to the King every now and then. The story continues.