Najam Sethi should have been allowed to continue helming PCB; Arif Abbasi better choice than Ehsan Mani

By Syed Khalid Mahmood 

(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The challenges to Imran Khan, the Prime Minister, may be far too many. As he has been quoted as admitting repeatedly and publicly that he has fast becoming sick of the problems coming to his knowledge during the presentations he has had from the various Ministries and departments after assuming office with full of promises. 

The one area where Prime Minister Imran being expected to deliver is cricket, the game which has earned him fame and fortune. Arguably the greatest and the most gifted cricketer ever to have played for Pakistan, his passion for cricket is known to everyone. 

Najam Sethi, instead of going to courts, chose to resign as Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) as Imran prepared to take oath as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. 

It is a common knowledge that he deemed it proper to quit himself instead of waiting to be sidelined. The political differences between the two high-profile personalities are known to everyone but for the sake of Pakistan cricket, Najam should have been allowed to continue helming the PCB. 

But Imran, despite his preoccupations and innumerable challenges at the highest office of the country, opted to poke his nose in the cricket affairs by accepting the resignation and started hunting for a successor. 

After being sworn in as the Prime Minister, he did get the constitutional right to nominate the Chairman of the PCB. 

He settled for Ehsan Mani, who has also been a former President of the International Cricket Council (ICC) besides having represented the country in the game’s governing body for a number of years. 

Ehsan is being considered as a controversial choice and, given the current situation, it would have been advisable to have retained Najam instead, if the idea was to continue recovering the lost ground and conquer new frontiers. 

Najam, a go-getter in the truest sense of the word,  had looked as the most suitable person to lead the revival of Pakistan cricket in the current scenario when a lot of additional qualities are required besides mere experience of handling the affairs of the game. 

Having proven track record and possessing the contacts in the concerned international circles, Najam would have stood much better chance of further improving the image of Pakistan cricket, which was severely dented during the tenure of Ijaz Butt in particular. 

The name of veteran administrator Arif Ali Khan Abbasi was also doing rounds as a successor to Najam. He had played the pivotal role in having Imran installed as the captain of the Pakistan cricket team in 1982, which was a bold move, paid immediate dividends. Imran, it may be recalled, was handed over the captaincy when many of the senior members of the team had revolted against Javed Miandad. 

The Pakistan cricket was facing a crisis those days but it went to the credit of Arif the then Honorary Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in Pakistan (BCCP) to have converted the problem into an opportunity and the rest is history. 

Bigger challenges were faced in the era of match-fixing in the 1990s and Arif, as CEO, was believed to have handled the situations shrewdly. Arif could have been a more appropriate choice to head Ehsan, even if Imran had made up his mind to settle his political scores with Najam. 

It is really shameful that the charismatic Najam, who had settled into his groove, had to leave the scene because he had rightly assessed that the new government was not going to see him in office at any cost. It would have been in Pakistan cricket’s interest to have been in the leadership role but that is not to be, for the time being.