By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Mohsin Naqvi, a media mogul and the interim chief minister of Punjab, the country’s most populous province, was elected unopposed on Tuesday as the new chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, ending a 13-month leadership vacuum in the country’s troubled cricket administration.
Naqvi, who will serve a three-year term as the 37th chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), faces the challenge of restoring order and trust in the body, which has been mired in legal disputes, political meddling, and administrative turmoil since the ouster of former chairman Ramiz Raja in December 2022.
“I am deeply honored and humbled to have been unanimously elected as the chairman of the PCB. I am thankful for the trust and confidence reposed in me,” Naqvi said in a statement after a meeting of the board’s governors at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore.
“I am fully committed to upgrading the standard of the game in the country and bringing professionalism in the administration of cricket in Pakistan.”
The board also posted a photo on its official website of Naqvi meeting with the chief selector, Wahab Riaz, and the chief operating officer, Salman Naseer.
No other details were provided by the board, which simply announced that Naqvi had been elected unopposed as the chairman.
Naqvi’s appointment was widely anticipated after his predecessor Zaka Ashraf resigned last month, three days after the government prevented him from holding a meeting of the Interim Management Committee, a body that was supposed to form the board’s governors and pave the way for the election of the chairman.
Ashraf, who oversaw a turbulent period in Pakistan cricket, was the chairman when Pakistan crashed out of the one-day World Cup in India without reaching the semi-finals. Skipper Babar Azam was sacked after the World Cup and Pakistan named Shan Masood as their test captain and Shaheen Shah Afridi as their Twenty20 captain.
Ashraf was also the board chairman when PCB agreed to host the Asia Cup one-day tournament in a hybrid model. Pakistan hosted only four matches of the tournament while Sri Lanka hosted nine, including the final.
Former Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq had voiced concern about the lack of stability in Pakistan cricket management, highlighting the frequent changes made by chairmen, who come and go.
“Pakistan cricket should not be run in such a haphazard manner, and we need to have long-term plans for the team management, selectors, and grooming of players. Unfortunately, in Pakistan a change in the board leadership changes everything,” Misbah had said.
Despite sweeping changes to the coaching staff, Pakistan was whitewashed 3-0 in a test series in Australia and lost a Twenty20 series 4-1 in New Zealand earlier in 2024.
Naqvi will continue to serve as Punjab’s caretaker chief minister alongside his role at the helm of the board. Naqvi’s term as caretaker chief minister has already exceeded its constitutional limit.
According to Pakistani law, a caretaker government can serve in that capacity for only three months while preparations for upcoming elections occur. Naqvi, however, was appointed over a year ago, in January 2023, with Pakistan’s elections delayed by several months. His time as chief minister of Pakistan’s largest province will finally end later this week, when Pakistan goes to the polls for general elections on Feb. 8.
While Naqvi has no known cricketing experience or a background in cricketing administration, that is not unusual for most board chairmen, especially over the past decade. Neither Najam Sethi nor Ashraf, the two men who held that position for the best part of the last 10 years, had such experience before being first appointed, with Ehsan Mani and Raja exceptions rather than the rule.
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