The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in reply to the ICC’s Pakistan Task Team (PTT) recommendations has identified a number of factual errors in their observations and pointed out that the set up under which the Pakistan cricket was being run could not be possible without the government support.
The PCB on Wednesday sent its observations to ICC on Pakistan Task Team Report, presented in the last ICC Board Meeting held in Hong Kong. In its observation, the PCB also expressed its surprise that the PTT recommendations came without the visit of the team to Pakistan accept for David Richardson’s few hours stay at Karachi. The PTT called for independent selection even without meeting the selection committee or its chairman or any of its committee members.
An official of the board said: “There are a number of factual errors in the report.” He also called it a ‘scholarly exercise’ rather than being Pakistan specific. “The entire report has been prepared without PTT ever visiting Pakistan except for a brief chat of a few hours that David Richardson had with a few ex-players during his visit to Karachi in January 2011 or perhaps some input to PTT from Ramiz Raja (former PCB chief executive officer). This raises serious questions on the observations given in the report”, PCB response suggests.
“A detailed response has been sent to the ICC on some of the PTT observations and recommendations,” he added. “On the PTT report expressing reservations on the authority of the President of Pakistan in the appointment of Chairman PCB and members of Governing Board, we have said 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. Keeping in view the extraordinary security situation in the country, having the President as Patron of PCB adds tremendous value and comfort.”
“The PTT was further reminded that this system is in place since the PCB became full-member of the ICC and it should be appreciated that a system which has propelled Pakistan to the top of the cricket world has been in place for approximately 60 years and cannot certainly be labeled as ‘faulty’…,” the reply to the ICC added.
About the Pakistan and India series, the PCB response to the observation was “Whereas the Indian government issued favorable statements regarding resumption of cricketing ties between the two countries, but it seems that BCCI is still awaiting formal signal from its government in this regard. We feel that perhaps PTT/ICC should have taken a lead role in ensuring that all bilateral tour commitments are honoured by India vis-à-vis Pakistan. In fact, this was also within the ambit of TOR’s of PTT. We do not have anything to suggest on record that PTT/ICC made any efforts to engage with BCCI or the Government of India in this regard.” On PTT’s observation regarding role of Mike Brearley and Greg Chappel, PCB response states, “While we appreciate that Mike Brearley and Greg Chappell were made Ambassadors to support Pakistan cricket, we are yet to observe any endeavors from their side. Although with their standing in international cricket, they could have gone a long way in supporting cricket in Pakistan. We still welcome them to come to Pakistan and expect that they will now play a proactive role in supporting return of international cricket in Pakistan.” The PCB reply stated: “It finds number of recommendations that are incorrect, superfluous or redundant. For instance the number of contracted players mentioned in PTT’s report is incorrect and the observation of PTT that PCB does not have a Public Comment Policy is also incorrect.”
The PTT report calling for an independent selection committee, the PCB clarified that the Selection Committee is independent and the procedure of their appointment, their domain, functions and duties are documented quite contrary to what PTT report asserts. “Regrettably, PTT did not meet the Chairman of Selection Committee to get his views. The process of selection is such that the selectors finalize a team which is sent to Chairman PCB for his formal approval. In case there are any queries with regard to any player, the same is sent back to the Selection Committee for their comments and it is entirely up to the Selection Committee to finalize the squad. They in fact sign the final squad before submitting the same to Chairman PCB for his formal approval. We therefore feel that the recommendations of PTT that Chairman PCB has the right of veto are not based on facts. The process of selection is a time tested one and has worked for Pakistan. It ensures that there are proper checks and balances in selection matters. The view that there is interference in the selection matters is therefore factually incorrect devoid of reality and henceforth rejected. ” “All members on the Selection Committee are either former international or first class cricketers. The Chairman of selectors is also a reputable international cricketer. The PCB therefore does not agree with PTT’s recommendations that there should be a clear process for nomination of selectors and criteria when in fact the above is a process already in place.” “We respectfully disagree with this recommendation. In Pakistan the system of selecting a captain is different. No reason has been given by PTT in support of its recommendation that Selection Committee is the best judge of who the captain of Pakistan should be? If this recommendation is based on what other countries follow it may not work for Pakistan. Again the authority to nominate the captain has been delegated by the Governing Board to the Chairman,” the PCB replied to the ICC.
On PTT recommendation of the Team Manager and his support staff, the PCB response stated: “These recommendations are probably given by PTT as ‘best business practice’ rather than Pakistan specific. To our knowledge, there are other countries that nominate managers on tour-by-tour basis and the system works well for them. Same in the case with other support staff who is appointed by the Boards. In the absence of any plausible argument in favor of change, such recommendations cannot be accepted nor implemented.” The response also clears the impression the PTT report makes when it demands a clearly documented allocation of responsibilities amongst each of the team management personnel. The PCB response clarifies, “The same is already been undertaken as no cricket board nor team on a foreign tour will be able to operate. It would have been better had PTT offered any cogent reason for making such a recommendation.”
About the role of PCB Cricket Committee PTT had recommended that it should be given more prominence in PCB’s governance structures in order to provide direction on all cricket issues and should be made responsible and accountable for considering and making recommendations to the Governing Board relating to the domestic cricket structures.PCB response states that this is “not reflective of reality”. The response elaborates “The Cricket Committee makes recommendations on various aspects of cricket like domestic tournaments, venues, playing conditions etc. The Committee’s recommendations are either implemented straight away or if required, discussed at the Governing Board meetings.” On the recommendation of the PTT report that Internal Auditor and CFO should have separate roles, PCB response clarifies that the position of Internal Auditor and CFO are separate in PCB (except for a short period when new CFO was being hired and Internal Auditor was given the extra responsibility of Acting CFO)). Responding on the demand of Internal Auditor being responsible to Audit Committee, which should be independent of PCB the response states, “It is interesting to note that even ICC’s own Audit Committee Chairman is not independent of ICC.”
The PCB reply further stated “it hopes that now when the weaknesses in the report have been identified, required amendments will be made ‘for the report to reflect the true facts and reality’.” Commenting on the PCB response Chairman PCB Ijaz Butt, said: “I am grateful to the PTT for their work. While the intent cannot be questioned, few discrepancies can be identified in the report, which PCB consider duty-bound to rectify. I wish to reiterate the assurance of ICC to us that recommendations in the report are not directives to PCB and that it is entirely up to PCB to accept and implement these. Having consulted members of our Board of Governors, we decided to send a detailed response to ICC. I hope that it will be taken in a positive spirit.”
