Daily Times

Since the Pakistan Super League (PSL) II spot-fixing scandal came to light in the United Arab Emirates in March this year, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is on the back-foot. The PCB seems to excel in making dubious decisions of an arbitrary nature which defy all reasoning and common sense. There is a world of difference between the PCB’s ‘outwards shows’ which are ‘least themselves’ and the ground realities which actually expose its charades and shams. Whoever joins the PCB bandwagon believes he will be there till eternity. That is the standard mindset.

The PCB’s incompetence in handling the PSL corruption case has backfired in a big way and put its top officials, including the chairman, Shaharyar Mohammad Khan, who is on the wrong side of 85, in hot waters. The PCB has made the same pathetic mistakes which former chairman Ijaz Butt, termed as ‘buffoon’ by an ICC official, committed in 2010 when the then spot-fixing scandal, involving Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif, was unearthed in England. The present spot-fixing saga, involving Sharjeel Khan, Shahzaib Hasan, Khalid Laitif and Nasir Jamshed, is keeping the sport on its toes and providing soap opera lovers all the thrills, comedy and drama in this depressing environment.

A three-member anti-corruption tribunal, constituted by the PCB to adjudicate upon the matter, comprised of those personalities who were and are directly involved with the PCB. Ashgar Haider is a former PCB legal counsel, Tauqir Zia is a former PCB chairman while former Test captain Wasim Bari has served the PCB in various capacities including the chief selector. It is also interesting to note that Tauqir Zia’s son is working for the PCB in school cricket arena while Wasim Bari is looking for a job again. With such ‘great credentials’ and a close proximity with the PCB, how this tribunal, not independent of the parties, can dispense justice to the accused is a million dollar question. No doubt, the tribunal comprising such personalities is against the principles of natural justice. It is deplorable that the PCB has become both judge and jury.

Article 5 of the PCB Anti-Corruption Code clearly states: “5.1.2: The Chairman of the PCB shall appoint three members from the Disciplinary Panel and/or any appropriate external lawyers/cricketers/experts as members of the Anti-Corruption Tribunal(which may include the Chairman of the Disciplinary Panel) to form the Anti-Corruption Tribunal to hear the case. One member of the Anti-Corruption Tribunal, who shall be a lawyer, shall sit as the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Tribunal. The appointed members shall be independent of the parties and shall have had no prior involvement with the case.”

An independent and neutral tribunal, comprising persons with impeccable reputation and having no association with the PCB, should have been formed to conduct the trial. But we are not a nation of sage souls. Rather we indulge in thoughtless decisions and act on our whims. Not only lawyers of Sharjeel Khan and Khalid Latif, but the critics have rightly objected to the tribunal and its proceedings. It’s very unfortunate that the PCB is not following the due process but trying to bulldoze the justice system. The PCB has only one thing in mind: to convict Sharjeel Khan, Khalid Laitif, Shahzaib Hasan and Nasir Jamshed by hook or by crook. If the PCB had concrete evidence against the accused, its officials, including the ‘pious one’ Colonel (retired) Mohammad Azam of the PCB Security and Vigilance Department, would not have been ‘begging’ and trying ‘coerce’ the accused to admit their ‘guilt’ for ‘lessen sentences’. Mohammad Irfan and Mohammad Nawaz have already been ‘punished’ with lighter penalties to show all and sundry that how tough the PCB is while dealing with the corrupt. Fast bowler Mohammad Irfan has been banned for six months while spinner Mohammad Nawaz for two months and both are also fined after they ‘confessed’ to failing to report ‘approaches’ by bookmakers.

It is surprising that when the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) started its probe into the scandal, the PCB showed its displeasure and questioned the jurisdiction of the FIA. This was made apparent by a top official of the PCB, Najam Sethi, who also heads the Pakistan Super League secretariat, when he suggested that the FIA put on hold its inquiry until the PCB had completed its process to find out whether the players were guilty or not. Sethi had also negated the impression that the PCB had asked the FIA to help them investigate the case.

T20 leagues are easy targets for the fixing mafia. There are easy avenues to make quick money and exposure to players is not as restrained as it is during bilateral series or world tournaments. But to keep our players safe and clean and protect them is the prime duty of the PCB, which has failed in this regard. Sharjeel Khan, Khalid Latif, Shahzaib Hasan and Nasir Jamshed are facing charges for a number of breaches of the PCB anti-corruption code. Being provisionally suspended, they face bans ranging from five years to life if found guilty.

The PCB is manipulating the facts and statements of the accused to emerge ‘victorious’ against the menace of corruption. With not following the due process, how could the PCB be impartial in the spot-fixing case? May be the PCB officials consider themselves saints who have never committed any sins, errors, mistakes and blunders in their entire lives or maybe they are the pure souls descended straight from heavens. Knowing little about the game of which they have been made Czars out of the blue, the latter surround themselves with sycophants who readily endorse their every fanciful decision and make hay while the sun shines. The good of the game is farthest from their agenda.

Nothing, perhaps, sums up the contradictions of Pakistan cricket, and the abyss into which it descended in the last couple of years. With the ongoing power struggle, the PCB has become more or less dysfunctional. The controversies involving PCB top officials have made the country a laughing stock around the globe. These hullabaloos and legal mess has crippled the PCB and damaged its reputation more than anything else. The saner elements in the country not only want Pakistan cricket to come out of the mire, but also need some respite from this unending deluge of miserable drama in the PCB, which has plunged it to the lowest ebb. But the circus is continuing unabated.

The people of this ‘land of the pure’ are remained bewildered why these unpleasant incidents and extreme situations kept on recurring and why controversies simply refused to spare Pakistan cricket. Perhaps they still not have realised by now that both in the national sphere and the sporting arena the root of our dilemma is the notorious system of patronage and imposed cronies, to the exclusion of merit and professionalism. Under the powerful patron’s benevolent gaze, the pick and choose appointees can survive scandals and failures that would crush an ordinary mortal. Pakistan has to find its own solutions but that means finding the right people to run the national game, people of integrity, independence and vision, capable of implementing plans that will halt the decline in Pakistan cricket. But such people rarely find their way to power in Pakistan, even more rarely to a position of influence in the PCB.