Time to revolutionise mindsets
Is changing the coach the only solution to improve the performance of the team? Obviously not. Domestic cricket structure, players' power, weak captain, fitness problems etc. are the other major areas that need immediate attention to boost cricket standards in Pakistan
By Khurram Mahmood
Pakistan cricket coach Geoff Lawson was sacked by the new PCB Chairman Ijaz Butt last month. Lawson joined the Pakistan team in July 2007 after the sudden death of former coach Bob Woolmer during the World Cup in the West Indies.

Sachin Tendulkar comes out on top
After more than 21 years, the leading run scorer in Test cricket is once again an Indian. A look at how the record has changed hands from Bannerman to Tendulkar
By M Shoaib Ahmed
The second ball in Test cricket produced the first run, scored by English-born Charles Bannerman off England's round-arm bowler Alfred Shaw on March 15, 1877. After his opening partner Nat Thomson had equalled this historic feat before becoming the first player to be dismissed in a Test (bowled by Allen Hill for a single), Bannerman went on to the first Test fifty, then the first Test century (the only one of his first-class career) and, finally, to his famous 165 (retired hurt), which constituted 67.34% of Australia's innings (245), a record that still stands.

The results were almost as shocking for Pakistan's sports fans back home as they were for the officials of the Pakistan Olympics Association (POA), Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) and the Pakistan Sports Trust (PST) themselves. In a concept totally new to them, in contrast to some Asian countries where sporting events contested next to the beaches have been arranged for several years, the Pakistan contingent picked up seven medals including two gold at the inaugural Asian Beach Games held in the picturesque island of Bali in Indonesia in the month of October.

Pakistan participated in seven of the 19 disciplines that were part of the Asian Beach Games. The return as regards medals came totally as a surprise, as Pakistan has hardly ever arranged sporting competitions on the beaches at an organised level. A few months ago, a women's kabaddi team played an exhibition match on the Seaview portion of the Karachi beach, but no one really took the girls seriously.

It had been expected that a women's contingent will also proceed to Bali for the Asian Beach Games, but eventually the idea was shelved. A 41-member all-male squad then represented the country in Indonesia and, of the 15 medals of any colour that the players and teams could have obtained, it has returned home with seven -- two gold, two silver and three bronze.

Bali remains perhaps the biggest tourist destination in the world, in spite of a few terrorist bomb blasts that have rocked the island over the last six years, and some 6,000 sports persons from 42 of the 45 full members of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) were thus fortunate to have experienced the ocean, beaches, the sun and the sand of Bali over nine days of fun-filled proceedings and also have the opportunity to win laurels for their respective nations.

Pakistan sent individual sportsmen to take part in Beach Wrestling, Body Building, Sailing and Windsurfing. Two pairs of players were represented in the Beach Volleyball event. And then there were the Beach Handball and Beach Kabaddi teams. The handball lads grabbed the gold medal as did wrestler Ghulam Haider in the 65kg category.

The kabaddi team was pipped by arch-rivals India in the final and had to be content with the silver medal in the end. Wrestler Mohammad Ali picked up silver in the 75kg class.

All four wrestlers, in fact, got medals. Bronze medals were won by Usman Majeed in his 85kg competition while Mohammad Taseen won his third-place fight in the 85+kg event.

The medal winning streak had started early, on the third day of the Games on October 20, when Mohammad Imran Qureshi was awarded the bronze medal in the 75kg body building contest. In a multi-nation, multi-sport event, it was the first time ever that a Pakistani body builder has won any kind of a medal.

The only sports that saw Pakistan return empty-handed from Bali were Beach Volleyball, Sailing and Windsurfing. Surely, now that the Pakistan authorities know where their sports people stand regarding this new idea of a very exciting regional event, they will realise how to procure better results the next time.

A total of 19 sporting disciplines were contested in Bali. Apart from the seven, in which Pakistan featured, these were Beach Basketball, Beach Pencak Silat, Beach Sepaktakraw, Beach Soccer, Beach Waterpolo, Dragon Boat Racing, Jet-Ski, Marathon Swimming, Paragliding, Surfing, Triathlon and Woodball.

Of course, several of these sports are indigenous only to south east Asia and are not contested in the rest of the Asian region. Perhaps, that's one of the reasons why Muscat in Oman has already trimmed the total to 11 sports from 19 when the 2nd Asian Beach Games are held there in 2010.

The Muscat Asian Beach Games Organising Committee (MABGOC) director, Habib A Macki, however has a slightly different explanation. "We are looking at different things. Here in Bali, there are many hotels and you can accommodate many athletes," he said. "We don't want to build that many hotels because there will be not much use. We must think about the future. Therefore, we will concentrate on only 11 sports and a certain number of athletes," he added.

The organisers of the Asian Beach Games are already looking to the future though. They have venues lined up for the next four events upto 2016, including Muscat two years from now.

The 2012 Asian Beach Games will be held in Haiyang in the Peoples Republic of China and the 2014 edition in Boracay, Philippines while the 2016 Games are scheduled for Phuket in Thailand.

The medals table in Bali was headed by hosts Indonesia with an overall tally of 51. These included 23 gold, eight silver and 20 bronze. Of the 27 nations that picked up at least a medal each, Pakistan were placed at number 11 -- a position that they shared with Chinese Taipei -- with their haul of seven medals.

The top 10 nations on the medals chart, apart from leaders Indonesia, were: 2 Thailand 37 medals, 10-17-10. 3 China 23, 6-10-7. 4 South Korea 21, 4-7-10. 5 Japan 9, 3-3-3. 6 Hong Kong 8, 3-3-2. 7 India 5, 3-0-2. 8 Vietnam 10, 2-5-3. 9 Myanmar (Burma) 5, 2-3-0 and 10 Malaysia 10, 2-2-6.

India won three gold medals at the Bali Asian Beach Games. One was in men's Beach Basketball and the other two in Beach Kabaddi, one each in the men's as well as women's competition. One of the two bronze medals went to the women's Beach Basketball team and the other to body builder Daejit Singh in the 60kg category.

As many as 15 nations failed to win any medals. These included Iran, Kyrgyzstan, DPR Korea, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Three Asian countries -- Bhutan, Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan -- didn't send any athletes to Bali.

The POA President Lt Gen (retd) Syed Arif Hasan was breathing easier after Pakistan's poor performance in world and Asian sports events over the last few years. He said "Pakistani sportsmen put up an impressive show in the Asian Beach Games which are a new concept and experience for them, and efforts will be made to build on this success by grooming athletes in these sports.

"It is a heartening sign that we won seven medals -- including two gold, two silver and three bronze -- in the inaugural edition of the Games, and POA will take every measure to ensure better results in the 2010 Games to be held in Muscat."

He said the Pakistan athletes participation in the Beach Games has been a learning experience, and POA will soon unveil a comprehensive training program to prepare the athletes for the next Games.

"It is an important event as a record number of over 40 countries participated and made the Bali Games a huge success," he said.

He lauded OCA President Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahad Al Sabah for his vision to promote sports by coming up with new ideas of the Indoor and Beach Asian Games, making Asia the hub of sports activities, and giving a chance to countries who lack in infrastructure to host such events.

Gen Arif said the POA is striving for the uplift of sports in Pakistan, ensuring the country's participation in all elite events at the Asian and world level.

"We are catering to the needs of all national sports bodies by extending financial assistance for training of their athletes at home and abroad, with a vision to have a better future for sports in Pakistan," he asserted.

He said funds generated by the PST are regularly spent on development of sports under a permanent arrangement, and the sports federations have now reached a stage to start producing results at the international level.

The POA chief said that millions of rupees have so far been given in grant to different sports bodies, and POA is encouraging participation of sportsmen in all Asian events in spite of criticism from some quarters.

Pakistan really has no tradition of sports being held on the beaches near the sea, although this trend now appears to be ready for a change. The players trained for Bali in places with no beach lines, with soft sand and earth used to give the sports people just a feel of the surface that they were going to encounter. Surely, now is the time to shift the scene of action to Karachi and to the sandy beaches all through Balochistan province.

BEACH HANDBALL

Preliminaries Group B: Pakistan beat Jordan 2-0 (14-9, 23-14), beat Indonesia 2-0 (23-16, 23-10), beat Kuwait 2-1 (20-5, 10-14, 4-1). Semifinals: Pakistan beat Qatar 2-1 (8-10, 7-4, 11-10). Final: Pakistan beat Kuwait 2-1 (14-22, 16-14, 9-8). GOLD MEDAL

BEACH KABADDI

Preliminaries: Pakistan beat Indonesia 84-17, beat South Korea 50-9, beat Bangladesh 59-25, beat Thailand 78-23, tied with India 41-41. Final: India beat Pakistan 37-32. SILVER MEDAL

BEACH VOLLEYBALL

Preliminaries Group B: Zaheer Abbas/Mohammad Ismail Khan beat Xavier/Da Rocha Guterres (Timor-Leste) 2-0, lost to Bombuwala Devage/Warnakulasooriya (Sri Lanka) 2-0, lost to Yungtin/Sawangrueang (Thailand) 2-0. Rank 17-32: Lost to Zaheer Khan/Haafiz Amjad Hussain Shahzad (Pakistan) 2-0. Rank 25-32 Lost to Bombuwala Devage/Warnakulasooriya (Sri Lanka) 2-0.

Preliminaries Group G: Zaheer Khan/Haafiz Amjad Hussain Shahzad lost to Verayo/Sasing (Philippines) 2-0, lost to Suratna/Santoso (Indonesia) 2-0, beat Homsombath/Lathmany (DPR Lao) 2-0. Rank 17-32: Beat Zaheer Abbas/Mohammad Ismail Khan (Pakistan) 2-0. Rank 17-24: Lost to Sangkhachot/Pollueang (Thailand) 2-0.

BEACH WRESTLING

65kg Round of 16: Ghulam Haider bye. Round of 8: Beat Mohammad Akram Rahimi (Afghanistan). Semifinals: Beat Kota Horaguchi (Japan). Final: Beat Pahmi Pami Ginawan (Indonesia). GOLD MEDAL

85kg Round of 16: Usman Majeed beat Daniyar Kobonov (Kyrgyzstan). Round of 8: Beat Jason Balabal (Philippines). Semifinals: Lost to Jehyoun Noh (Korea) by fall. Fight for 3rd place: Beat Takayuki Mizuguchi (Japan). BRONZE MEDAL

75kg Round of 16: Mohammad Ali beat Luis Ansag (Philippines). Quarter-finals: Beat Takahisha Oda (Japan). Semifinals: Beat Ahmed Mansoor Musleh (Afghanistan). Final: Lost to Yun Seok Lee (Korea). SILVER MEDAL

85+kg Round of 16: Mohammad Taseen lost to Enkh-Amgalan Tumurkhuu (Mongolia). Repechage: Beat Francis Villanueva (Philippines). Fight for 3rd place: Beat Janarbek Kenjeev (Kyrgyzstan). BRONZE MEDAL

BODY BUILDING

70kg: Khalid Ali did not qualify for finals

75kg: Mohammad Imran Qureshi BRONZE MEDAL

SAILING

Laser 4.7: Muhammad Abdur Rehman Bin Nasir Rao ended 19th out of 22

WINDSURFING

Men - Mistral OD Heavy Weight: Muhammad Tanveer ended 6th out of 9

Men - Mistral OD Light Weight: Raja Qasim Abbas Rathore ended 9th out of 13

Men - RSX: Khan Dad ended 13th out of 14

Change is in the air since the inception of the PPP-led Government, and almost every major department and organisation of national importance is going through this process in one way or the other. This time, it is the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) that has opted for the experiment.

Though the change in PCB ranks started with the resignation of the then Chairman of PCB, Dr Nasim Ashraf, who called it a day after the resignation of former President Gen Pervez Musharraf, who was also the patron-in-chief of the PCB, yet the bulk organisational changes in the country's premier sports body materialised only last week, when the Board sacked coach Geoff Lawson and its chief operating officer Shafqat Naghmi and appointed Intikhab Alam as the new coach of Pakistan cricket team.

Much has been said about these 'bulk' changes in the PCB set-up, most being revolving around the impact of these changes on game itself. 'Who is Who' in the cricket set-up should not be our concern, our concern should be cricket, which should not suffer due to changes or new moves, they opine.

What will be the impact of these new developments in the PCB on the game itself has yet to be seen, but some analysts have already termed these moves as 'old wine in new bottles'. They are skeptical of these changes as they deem structural changes in the system of cricket in the country as necessary for the betterment of the game.

They are of the view that domestic cricket should be made as a touchstone for the promotion of game. They advocate cricket at grass root level to hunt talent and groom future stars for the sake of cricket. That's why they view these changes as changes for the sake of changes.

However, on the brighter side, the new changes do promise some good. Particularly, Intikhab Alam's appointment as national team coach does sound well simply because the experiment of foreign coach has miserably failed to bring things back on track.

Not only in cricket, but also in other games like hockey, football and boxing, the experiments of a foreign coach has not done marvels.

Just imagine, Lawson was the third foreigner after South African Richard Pybus and late Bob Woolmer, who also served as coaches, but all three failed to make a difference.

Players never felt comfortable with these foreign coaches. Though Bob was a bit popular among players, yet the communication gap was there. There is no denying the fact that it is very difficult for a foreign coach to understand the country's culture and communicate his point of view to the players and get the best out of them. That's why former cricket greats ever questioned the credentials of foreign coaches.

Former cricket maestro Javed Miandad has openly spoken about the foreign coaches. Similarly, former opener Mohsin Khan had termed Geoff Lawson as unsuitable for the position considering that he was a second-tier fast bowler for Australia in his time and did not had any experience of coaching at the international level.

Generally speaking Lawson failed in arresting the downslide in Pakistan cricket. Whether it was the Inzamam-Woolmer era, or the Lawson-Shoaib Malik period, the team continued its slump and remained defensive in its approach to the game.

What is needed right now is the revival of the concept of aggressive cricket by Pakistan players, who have developed a psyche of 'defensive approach' over the years and have failed to dominate the game due it. For that, Intikhab would also need a helping hand from an 'aggressive' captain, not the type of Shoaib Malik, who is so so in his approach to the game on the field.

Intikhab has been appointed for two years and he will accompany the team to Abu Dhabi for the three One-day Internationals against the West Indies. However, he has taken the reign in very testing times as Pakistan cricket is passing through a critical juncture right now. No team is willing to visit Pakistan for security reasons. Meanwhile, West Indies has also cancelled the two-Test series in Dubai and will only play the ODI series.

The problems of 'Player Power' and indiscipline also need to be tackled tactfully and Intikhab will have to be careful and tactful to handle the 'tainted' and indiscipline players with care to make things move in a smooth way.

Undisciplined seamers like Shoaib Akhtar and 'tainted' pacers like Asif, who, the PCB wants back in the team, need to be tackled with special care and sometime with an iron hand.

He is fully aware of this adverse situation. That's why Intikhab, who was the manager of Pakistan's World Cup winning squad in 1992, has termed his new job a "big challenge" for him.

"It's not an easy job and I have taken up this assignment as a big challenge," Intikhab was quoted to have said.

"Nobody is bigger than the game and instilling discipline among the players will be my priority," he was further quoted as saying.

It may be mentioned here that Pakistan will play three ODIs against the West Indies in November. And that will be the first assignment of Inti after taking over as national coach. This ODIs series is also viewed as a litmus test to judge as to how Intikhab is going handle things that fall apart in Pakistan cricket. Anyhow, we hope that the new coach fully shoulder responsibility and help bring things back on track in national cricket.

There is no doubt that cricket and hockey are the two most popular sports in Pakistan. Besides enjoying great success in the 1970s to the 90s, our national teams have also been world champions in both the games.

These days, Pakistan's cricket and hockey are passing through a 'struggling' phase for quite some time as far as the results and performances are concerned.

During the ongoing year, Pakistan people saw several changes at almost every level across the country. Likewise, cricket and hockey also experienced wholesale changes in a span of a couple of weeks. Now both the institutions are being run by known and familiar figures of the two sports.

President Asif Ali Zardari appointed former Test batsman Ijaz Butt as the new chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in early October and shortly afterwards Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani nominated former Olympian and sitting MPA Qasim Zia, as the 22nd President of Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF).

It may be recalled here that before the appointments of Ijaz Butt and Qasim Zia, there was great pressure on the government from different quarters for bringing former players for these two coveted positions. And as was expected, both the President and Prime Minister duly obliged the call and elevated Ijaz Butt and Qasim Zia to lucrative posts with a hope that Pakistan will regain its lost glory in cricket and hockey under the leadership of these two stalwarts.

It is an interesting coincidence in the sporting history of the country to have two former key players simultaneously at the helm in cricket and hockey. It has never happened in the past. Though former greats like Abdul Hafeez Kardar and Javed Burki had their spells as PCB (formerly BCCP) chiefs and Akhtar Rasool also had the top post in hockey but they ruled their respective institutions in different eras.

Right now, of the two, Pakistan hockey is engulfed several severe crises than cricket. Pakistan hockey is facing plenty of trouble like a lack of commercialism (sponsors and funds); bench strength and ineffective coaching etc. Pakistan's pathetic performance during the last decade is open to all and it is only due to the above-mentioned deficiencies. And that's why hockey needs to be handled with more care and on an emergency basis.

Hockey, the national game of Pakistan, has been declining rapidly for the last 15 years. The Pakistan hockey team has not won any major international tournament since the 1994 World Cup. Pakistan finished eighth at the Beijing Olympics in August -- its worst ever performance. Its previous lowest results were placing fifth at the 2004 Athens Games and at Seoul in 1988.

There are several factors behind Pakistan's humiliating showing over the years. The departmental structure and school level hockey are virtually dead. For the last many years, the PHF officials are being appointed on the basis of likes and dislikes.

On the other hand, fortunately there is no financial crisis in the PCB which is rightly being considered as the richest sporting body of Pakistan. However, the only worry Pakistan cricket is facing is poor performance especially against the leading sides of the world. It is to be noted here that the 1992 World Cup was Pakistan's last notable achievement. Our national team has never won the ICC Champions Trophy and Test rubbers against any leading side for a long time barring Asian rivals.

In this regard, no one can blame the PCB and PHF for the kind of coaching being imparted to Pakistan teams. The Pakistan high-ups have tried every brand of coaches -- young, old, local, foreigner for both cricket and hockey teams during the last 15 years but in vain.

If we analyse the reasons behind Pakistan's fading standards of cricket and hockey during the last decade we will find that the presence of military or non-technical heads also played a major role in this regard.

It is pertinent to mention here that in hockey, there were Presidents like Lt-Gen Muhammad Aziz Khan, Tariq Kirmani and Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who had very small association or nothing to do with hockey in the past. While in cricket, the top office was held by non-cricketing personalities like Shaharyar M Khan and Dr Nasim Ashraf during the last ten years.

Now the question arises whether these two former stars Ijaz Butt and Qasim Zia would be able to pull Pakistan out of long bleak era. Do they have any magic wand to raise the diminishing standards of the two popular sports of the country overnight? Though both Qasim and Ijaz have represented Pakistan at the top level and have valuable administrative experience behind them, it would not be an easy task for them to bring Pakistan at par with other leading teams of the world.

They will have to begin their regrouping campaign from scratch. There must be some fair and hard-working officials in their respective teams. And these officials must be equipped with modern-day techniques of the two games.

The Sialkot-born Butt, who was also a former president of Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industries in 1977, takes over as PCB chairman at a time when Pakistan has been blanked by the rest of cricket world in the name of so-called security crisis. Australia, New Zealand, England and West Indies declined to travel to Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy in August-September.

Pakistan have not played a Test match in the entire 2008. Their last home Test series was against South Africa in October 2007, following which they played a three-Test series in India in December. Butt, who played eight Tests and 67 first-class matches until the 1960s, was also a member of the PCB's governing body. He earlier served as the Secretary of the then Board of Control for Cricket in Pakistan (BCCP) between 1984 and 1988. He was also the president of the Lahore City Cricket Association (LCCA) for many years. He toured Australia in 1982-83 as manager of the Pakistan team and twice headed the national selection committee.

Ijaz Butt, 70, has hired seasoned campaigners -- Saleem Altaf (Director General PCB), Yawar Saeed (Manager) and Intikhab Alam (Head Coach) in his team. Butt & Co will have to take up the so-called security issue in ICC in a true professional manner so that Pakistan's home cricket drought could come to end. On the other hand, the new PHF chief Qasim Zia also requires a gigantic combined effort to pull Pakistan out of such a desperate state of affairs. Qasim, who was a member of the victorious Pakistan team of the Olympics 1984, played top level hockey from 1980-1987 and won gold medals in the Olympics, World Cup Hockey and Asian Games.

In his recent statements and interviews, the new hockey chief presented a proper programme which could lead Pakistan to top of hockey world again. In a press briefing, he pointed out that once Pakistan had a good pool of players but now we lack in finding good players.

To enhance the pool of players, PHF must organise hockey at school level under someone who can do it fairly. For regaining Pakistan's lost glory in field hockey, Qasim Zia and his team will have to transform their plans and promises into practical shape.

It has been a strange year in Pakistan that is still on. Strange things happening as the gap between people of the previous PCB regime and the newer ones remains cavernous, and still dangerously volatile. A handful of senior employees have been abandoned and the same old faces rotating again.

Old in real terms: Ijaz Butt is 70, Yawar Saeed 74, Saleem Altaf 64 and Intikhab Alam 67. Pakistan cricket is now in experienced hands. It will be at least six months before we can properly judge whether the PCB could continue to match the changing demands of cricket with its new globalised face. It may depend on the success or otherwise of the attempts to fudge together the traditional grey-haired men with the bold franchise system now coming into fashion, world's new cricket order.

The muscle power of the position rules now, as it did in the olden springs. I personally feel it should mostly be the discretion of the man responsible to formulate his own team and in PCB's case Ijaz Butt has every right and authority to ring changes according to his vision of explored and unexplored possibilities. That is clear from the fact that people like Geoffrey Lawson, Shafqat Naghmi and Nadeem Akram have been asked to leave.

Most of them, the ones shown the door, had messed with people now in power and being non-technocrats they had committed professional suicide. If I have to vote for Ijaz Butt, Saleem Altaf, Yawar Saeed and Intikhab Alam, I'll be the first one to fill the ballot boxes with both hands.

Nevertheless, at 39 I may well not be as experienced as those now steadily in positions of authority, but I must acknowledge that statesmanship and broad vision from the administrators, rather than a barefaced pursuit of self-interest, is as desperately needed in the small world of Pakistan cricket. Such is the essential attraction of cricket management that all the petty disputes and crises have to be worked out in due course, but the field will no doubt continue to be bumpy and exciting.

The recent changes in the top tier of the PCB and as usual the perception of its state of health has been coloured to a large extent by the high integrity and competence of people replacing shriveled and dead wood. Considering that the Dr Nasim Ashraf-run board failed miserably and was far from a vintage spectacle, but the ultimate appointment of Ijaz Butt and promotion of Saleem Altaf from Director Special Projects (sacked and reinstated through court) to more power-centered Director General of the PCB is highly satisfactory.

Primarily, of course, this is because both Mr Butt and Mr Altaf are genuine, well-tutored, ex-international cricketers more aligned to the game than their predecessors. Nonetheless, contrasting it is to see them stepping on a hotbed with ambitions to see the poorly handled product lifting at least to levels of decency if not affluence. However, being from a different age, though Mr Altaf has been in for a long time, skepticism is there too, because the modern structure of cricket is something of a paradigm: a successful business that puts cricket first, and has as its driving force the encouragement and development of young, enterprising and corporate friendly management experts.

And to be honest, in spite of being biased in their favour with reference to Mr Butt and Saleem Altaf, the backtracking of the first considering letting the tall pocket Hercules, Geoffrey Lawson, to continue until August 2009 and then suddenly asking him to leave is somehow symbolic of the way that they have got the balance wrong between the past and present. Such foolish misreading of the situations suited the amateurs running cricket, not compatible with people like Ijaz Butt, Saleem Altaf and Yawar Saeed.

Experiments with Richard Pybus, the late Bob Woolmer and Geoffrey Lawson didn't really work out, still futuristically, if the PCB intends to develop its team based on the rules of modern theories imports from overseas will still be important in the next phase of development, but it will be all for the good of the Pakistani game in the long run if success is seen to be based on the production of young local coaches through a strong system; a far cry, so it appears.

Real product will only come from high-fired, top quality first-class cricket. It will be no bad thing for first-class cricket, increasingly feel the media's cold shoulder as Big Event Syndrome becomes more and more virulent. Instead of sermons and rhetoric, time has come that Ijaz Butt shakes off the shackles to do justice to the remorseless demands of heading a shambolic PCB, everyone hopes that Pakistan cricket's true quality will re-emerge.

The sad truth seems to be that limited space for sport, and the perceived need to lighten the financial burden, not using the heavy artillery as in the past, means that fewer and fewer people would appreciate the widespread desire, felt by the intelligent people and cricket anoraks alike, for a thorough and interesting development of the first class game.

Where it is ritually complained that the PCB is weak, inconsistent, reactive, lacking in leadership, we now know exactly what this body will do on every issue before it: what the Chairman wishes. Sometimes not exactly; sometimes not without qualification; But in the main, no significant motion can advance without Chairman's patronage, and nothing to which he is resistant has a hope in hell.

Here is a conflict in what I am writing and what I intend to qualify. Towering people like Arif Ali Khan Abbasi think and have gone hoarse to take cricket to democratic reality with a Council casting deciding votes on issues pertaining to financial aspects and others too. In countries like India where proper democracy, both in the parliament and in cricket has been flourishing since 1947 and where governance is by vote and not by selection, also brings to the fore level of education of people brought on the committees.

If I have to vote for democratic form of governance I would be the first one taking my head out and sticking it in, agreeing fully to Arif and his analytical theories but in one sense at least, a unipolar PCB is long overdue.

It had already been, but mostly in wrong hands. Pakistan has always been the most populous and arguably also the most passionate, of cricket nations. But its house has commonly been divided, and its stock at home poor.

Abroad, apart from the political insecurities, management failures have resulted in Pakistan being perceived as insufficiently bankable. On the other hand, India has shown incomparable growth, introducing the evils of money to a cricket world of prelapsarian innocence. The reasons for India's belated eminence are not far to seek either. Its democracy is stable, its economy vital, its political and media elite rich beyond the dreams of avarice; they covet cultural clout due their wealth. I suspect it is no longer correct to talk about the proliferation and globalisation of cricket; rather after the slick IPL and even ICL, international game has been held hostage and the financial epicenter shifting to Asia not as before in England or Australia.

Regrettably, our own PCB headed by Dr Nasim Ashraf subordinated to Indian commercial agendas. That is to say, the emphasis moved from taking the game to new places in Pakistan and rehabilitating by eliminating the ills for its benefit and furtherance, people like Dr Nasim helped BCCI to register its influence, also providing content for the consumption of its domestic market.

And in a lot of ways this was actually no big deal. There were worse happening and governing values to be pervaded by; and now it comes to Mr Ijaz Butt to run cricket in Pakistan, most efficiently.

At best, in fact, Mr Butt has to show an elan and imagination much more than his predecessors to remodel the PCB and in the process ending chip-on-the-shoulder superpower and insatiable monopoly capitalist culture. It is hard not to savour the irony, for Pakistanis cricket governments were reminiscent of nothing so much as that famous endorsement of 'foreign dictatorship'.

It's also, of course, pure obfuscation to say that practically every Chairman since 1999 has had blood on his hands (pardon Lieutenant General Tauqir Zia). Cricket, in our own courtyard was degraded by the ruling junta and it colluded in the vandalisation of the sport.

Mr Butt has to realise that his predecessors had double standards, symptomatic of thinking as widespread as they were lazy, not just in cricket but generally. The accusation may well seem one of the bluntest, and also the crudest, tools in the kit of argumentation. It is popular because it saves the labour of thought, because it can pass for debate when it is actually a substitute for it, and because it leaves a pleasing sensation of smugness.

At the moment governing PCB and Pakistan cricket is like stripping every policy naked and then re-clothing it in proper perspectives. By the PCB standards such decisions would merit only a ticker-tape parade. Mr Butt would be thoroughly baffled to learn cricket's geopolitical tectonics and diplomatic responses to various questions. Mr Butt would be required to produce a product to attract foreign teams; if we want to do that we need to become a countervailing force, seizing whatever support might be passing, clutching for opportunities like the proverbial drunk for a lamp post. Just as the PCB looks increasingly shambolic, its new mercurial chairman would be required to run hard to gather real support, both nationally to develop a mine of playing talent for mainly national team's consumption.

Mr Butt needs to know that unipolar power is no guarantee of popularity-quite the opposite and he must. And for a group of chairmen including Dr Nasim Ashraf arrogating so much power, he wasn't always his own best advertisement, presenting a haphazard corporate image whole maintaining standards of governance apparently patterned after Tammany Hall, if not Adolf Hitler, with its immortal between honest and dishonest graft, and commitment to rewarding the men who stood behind and around him.

Mr Butt should understand that it is one thing to have earned the right to head the PCB, another to demonstrate deserving it; he should.