Dubai: Ehsan Mani, new chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), is on a mission to ensure that his cricket board’s governance is at its best. He revealed that his board will follow a policy of transparency too.
“For the team to keep performing well in world cricket, the governance of the board should be good, there should be accountability and there should be transparency. The New Zealand Cricket board, as well as Australia and South African boards all function that way. We want to bring transparency because if the structure of the board is not good, then it could be tough to make the Pakistan team stronger,” said Mani, who was the former president of the International Cricket Council (ICC) and was chosen by the Pakistan Prime Minister and former captain Imran Khan to head the board.
“Our prime minister’s vision is very clear. He wants the team to be of high quality. He wants to make sure talents are not missed,” he said.
Mani also expressed his strong views on the itinerary that had been made for Pakistan team in recent times. “I am surprised over who has agreed over such itinerary. It is unbalanced. Now on Pakistan team’s itinerary should be internally discussed and finalised. Pakistan should not be playing two Test series. We did that recently in England and are supposed to also play only two Tests against Australia in the UAE (next month) too. From now on, we will play only in a three-Test match series.”
Talking about resumption of India-Pakistan bilateral series, Mani, who played a pivotal role in discussions with Indian counterparts in 2003-04 series, said: “I feel restoration of bilateral series would not be possible before the Indian election next year. We want cricket to be depoliticised.”
Mani, who is happy with the current captain Sarfraz Ahmad and coach Mickey Arthur’s combination, feels that in future a coach will not be appointed by the chairman. “It should be done by a panel of thinking cricketers. We need a system rather than a personality based one. It should be total professional cricket based and cricketers based system with accountability to the board.”
Mani revealed that he will also be looking into the process of how players are being cleared to participate in foreign leagues. “I didn’t understand the rationale on what basis we committed our players for the leagues. The main criteria which I understand, was that how much money PCB gets and how much players will get. But they (the previous PCB hierarchy) did not look at the players’ workload. So I will examine all the leagues in which Pakistan players participates.”
Mani also wants to be discreet which leagues that Pakistan players are playing. “We need to do the due diligence in whichever leagues we are participating — whether they are credible or not. I am holding back my position (on UAE’s T10 league) until I get full satisfaction ... so I have requested the ICC to look into it again. I need assurance from the ICC because they have sanctioned it.”
