LAHORE - Shahryar Khan is all set to take the reins of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) again as its first democratically elected chairman.
The elections for the position of the PCB chairman are due on August 18 for which the last date for the submission of nomination papers was August 15. According to the PCB sources, no one has submitted their nomination papers to contest for the top PCB position except Shahryar Khan. The announcement of his appointment as PCB chairman is expected after overhauling of his papers. He would thenceforth be unanimously elected as PCB chairman.
Last year in May, Zaka Ashraf had declared himself as the first elected PCB chairman but the Islamabad High Court (IHC), later, declared his election as null and void as did the Supreme Court.
Earlier, Shahryar replaced one of the two special nominees Iqbal Umar. The government issued a notification dissolving the Management Committee (MC) of the PCB and replacing it with the governing board. The governing board constituted a chairman, four members of regions and departments and special nominees.
The sources further said with no other candidate, the 10-member Board of Governors (BoG) in the PCB is set to elect Shaharyar, who had earlier also served PCB as its chairman from 2003 to 2006, as the new chief. “The chief election commissioner of the board will announce the results on Monday,” they said and added: "The chief election commissioner of the board will announce the results on Monday."
A career diplomat, Shaharyar was at the helm of the board when the Indian team toured Pakistan for a full Test series in 2004 after 14 long years.
Shaharyar’s last tenure ended in controversial circumstances owing to successive incident that rocked Pakistan cricket. The first incident involved in an ugly ball-tampering row at The Oval in 2006 which eventually led to forfeiture of Test, the only incident of its kind in the entire Test history. Pakistan team then led by Inzamam-ul-Haq refused to continue with the Test at The Oval against England after Australian umpire Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove had imposed a penalty of five runs on Pakistan team for tampering with the ball.
Soon afterwards, Shaharyar faced another crisis when Younis Khan, then freshly installed to lead Pakistan in the ICC Champions Trophy in India in place of Inzamam, declined to captain the team just hours before the team’s departure to India. Shaharyar hurriedly named M Yousuf as the new captain but was removed as PCB chief the very same day and replaced by Musharraf’s close aide Dr Nasim Ashraf.
With Sethi still part of the Governing Board, there are strong rumours that the next PCB chairman could well be a dummy. However, since Shaharyar holds strong credentials and direct link with the prime minister, critics say he is fully capable of taking independent decisions in running the PCB.