https://arab.news/2abzx
- Caretaker Punjab Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi has emerged as a strong candidate for chairman’s post
- The Pakistan Cricket Board has not been headed by an elected chairman since December 2022
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) this week said its Board of Governors (BoG) will meet on Feb. 6 to elect a full-time, new chairman of the board.
The chairman’s post became vacant after former PCB head, Zaka Ashraf, quit on Jan. 19, a fortnight before his latest three-month extension as interim chairman expired.
Caretaker Punjab Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who was nominated by the PCB’s patron as a member of the BoG last week, has emerged as a strong candidate for the chairman’s post.
“Election Commissioner Mr.Shah Khawar has summoned a special meeting of the Board of Governors (BoG) for the election of the Chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) at 2pm on Tuesday, 6 February 2024,” the PCB said on Monday.
“The meeting will be held at the National Cricket Academy Lahore (NCA).”
If a new chairman is elected to the post, it will end a period of over one year without a person formally elected as the cricket board’s chairman.
Former PCB chairman Ramiz Raja, who was elected to the post after he was nominated as a member of the BoG by ex-prime minister Imran Khan in September 2021, was sacked by Khan’s predecessor in December 2022.
Pakistani journalist and author Najam Sethi was appointed chairman after Raja. However, Sethi resigned after six months in June 2023 for political reasons, saying he did not want the heads of two political parties, who were then in coalition, to fall out over him.
Ashraf was appointed as PCB’s interim chairman in July 2023. The mandate of the 10-member body he headed was to finalize the BoG and conduct elections for the post of chairman within four months.
He was given a three-month extension to Ashraf in November when that task could not be achieved.