The Pakistan Cricket Board governing body on Thursday formulated a fresh code of conduct for players and the officials in line with the International Cricket Council’s code to stem wrongdoings in the game.
The governing board met at the NationalCricketAcademy and gave the final approval to the conduct clauses leaving the acting chairman of the PCB Najam Sethi to go through it.
The interim chairman will sign the document after taking feed from the law experts.
According to the new code of conduct taken from the ICC’s book of law, have little changes and with the implementation of it, the official violating the code of conduct would face at least one year to 15 years ban.
The PCB formed the code of conduct on the directions of the ICC after a number of umpires found involved in corruption and match fixing and the PCB governing board gave the formal approval leaving it to Sethi to give the final approval.
With the new code enforce, now the officials too would be bound to take the no objection certificate from the PCB before taking part in any national or international event and any one violating the code would be penalised. The decision to inquiry of any such violation would be made within 30 days with the umpire or official having the right to appeal.
The documents of code of conduct were not signed today as the interim chairman was in Islamabad and is also expected to leave for the West Indies to keep a close eye on the team.
The new chief is believed to be powerful enough to watch the players behavior on the tour would be visiting the Caribbean.
Pakistan is to play a series of five One-Day Internationals and two Twenty20s against the West Indies would be monitored by Sethi.
The temporary chairman of the PCB was appointed by the prime minister on the direction of the Islamabad High Court which found the election of former chairman Zaka Ashraf as manipulated and with that he (Zaka Ashraf) was suspended and Sethi has been assigned to the post to conduct fresh elections within 90 days.
Sethi has claimed that the governing board which met yesterday, has asked him to go and see the team’s performance and get aware of the problems and issues face during any tour.
Keeping in the view the financial structure of the board and the powers given to the interim chairman by the constitution, the chairman is to take the important decisions and not to do the job of a security official. At a time when a security official is around the team and a highly paid team management surrounding the team with the coach observing the performance of the players, what role the ‘interim chairman’ is taking by visiting the West Indies.
In fact the assignment should be carried out if felt mandatory only by the permanent chairman if he is visiting the Caribbean to convince the West Indies Cricket Board to send its team to Pakistan, which is a no go area for any foreign team for a long time now.
He should be in the given 90 days if he is so desperate to do must rid the country’s cricket of black sheep, form new selection committee immediately, streamline the regions and regional cricket with grass root level and club cricket being the priority, make the academies functional and the most important of all have supporting wickets at all the first class grounds.