Former captain Imran Khan believes Pakistan cricket needs a revolution following a series of setbacks in recent years. The all-rounder told reporters that corruption in the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and nepotism in selection were the biggest hurdles facing the game.
Imran, who led Pakistan to the 1992 World Cup title, visited an academy set up by Moin Khan, another former Pakistan captain.
“What Pakistan cricket needs is a revolution,” said Imran, who is now an active politician and heads the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party. “We will have to root out corruption and nepotism from our cricket.” Imran lamented that fact that Pakistan lags behind countries like Australia and India. “Australia made enormous progress because of a solid domestic structure while India has boosted its cricket by introducing the IPL,” he said.
Imran said the International Cricket Council (ICC) will have to do more to curb match fixing. The cricketer turned politician told reporters during a visit to the Moin Khan Cricket Academy the ICC’s anti-corruption and security unit needed to be more productive.
“I think special measures are required like keeping a constant check on assets and accounts of players and giving the ACSU more authority to curb corruption,” Imran said. The comments by Imran Khan on corruption in cricket come a few days after former Sri Lankan captain Hashan Tillakaratne claimed in a television interview that match-fixing had been going on in his country since 1992.
The Sri Lankan cricket authorities have asked Tillakaratne to produce evidence to back up his claims. Imran said it was very difficult to detect spot-fixing instances in matches, insisting other steps were required to meet the challenge of fighting corruption. “It is very hard to detect such things and then find evidence to prove spot fixing has happened in a match,” he said. “But the more these instances are spoken about the more damaging it is to the sport’s credibility.”
