I am not calling it quits as PCB chairman, says Shaharyar

LAHORE: Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Shaharyar M Khan says that he has not yet made up his mind whether to leave his post after completing two years in office on August 17, 2016.

“Yes, I am also hearing various news reports about me quitting the post in August this year. But I want to clarify that there is no truth in such reports. In fact, I have not made up my mind yet for this important decision,” Shaharyar told Dawn here on Friday.

Shaharyar is the first elected chairman of the PCB under the new constitution which came into force in July 2014. According to the official notification he was elected as PCB chairman on Aug 18, 2014 under Paragraph 7 (2) and (3) of the PCB constitution, which allows the chairman to work for three years and makes him also eligible for re-election for one further term of three years provided that the total tenure of an individual as chairman shall in no case exceed a period of six years.

The current Board of Governors will complete its tenure of three years on Aug 17, 2017.

“Though initially I was asked to work as the PCB chairman for two years to settle down the dust, raised due to legal cases in the courts, as the working of the PCB had been halted in 2014. But as I was elected under a certain clause of the constitution which allows me a three-year period, so, I have to take a decision about it and no one else,” he explained.

“I will consult my friends, well-wishers and other stakeholders before taking a decision, but at the moment I am taking a leave and going to England on June 17,” he said.

Interestingly, it does not make any sense if the chairman decides to quit soon after appointing officials at key posts such as new selection committee headed by Inzamam-ul-Haq, head coach Mickey Arthur and Director Academy Mudassar Nazar. If the new officials fail to click, who will take the responsibility of their failure in case Shaharyar quits this year is a question that needs to be answered.

More interestingly, if such a situation arises it will be the second such occasion since many team officials like Moin Khan, Waqar Younis, Grant Flower and Grant Luden who were appointed by then acting set-up headed by Najam Sethi in 2014, flopped bitterly especially in ODIs and T20 formats but Shaharyar was left to take responsibility as he had taken over as chairman by then.

In the past practice, a chairman always worked with his own appointed team, but now the tradition is being changed and perhaps it suits the top officials not to be at the helm at the time of accepting any responsibility for the failures.