LAHORE: Chairman, management committee, Pakistan Cricket Board, Najam Sethi said on Thursday that New Zealand’s visit to Pakistan was very important and home team was selected for it and he could not say about bringing in changes in the squad.
“The team has been announced, I cannot say anything yet, some people are of the opinion that the team should also be changed, while in the opinion of some people, the team should not be changed, if the performance is good, then there will be no change, he told the media after assuming the charge of the chairman management committee of PCB. Upon his arrival at the home of cricket, Gadaffi stadium the headquarters of PCB, high officials received him and greeted him on his new appointment.
Najam Sethi said that when he was the Chairman of the PCB and Imran Khan led new government came into power, he was told at the highest level that he should stay and continue as Chairman and he should not leave.
“I was told that we have discussed the matter and you will not be moved”, added Najam Sathi.
The chairman of the management committee said that he thought that this was not appropriate as the Patron of the PCB has the right to bring whatever he wanted and he left as Chairman.
Prime Minister who is the patron of PCB constituted a 14-member management committee to take over the working of PCB for 120 days before conducting elections under the 2014 constitution.
Najam Sethi said that he thought that the then PCB patron Imran Khan’s vision would bring improvement and he decided not to stand in the way. “If I wanted, I would have sat down, resisted, fought and gone to the courts or made recommendations, but I said there is no need to stick with the position and decided to go home with dignity and paved the way for new comers to come forward and deliver “, he asserted.
He said he remained PCB Chairman for four years and everyone knows that what happened during that time period and what were the achievements and how successful he was.
Najam Sethi said that the departments wanted restoration of cricket so that the players get employment. He said that on the restoration of international cricket, the people of Karachi used to say that the PCB will hold the matches only in Lahore but Karachi was given the top most priority and the matches were held there.
To a question he said the international cricket will return to Peshawar as well and the international matches will also be organized there in near future. Najam Sethi added: “His specific mandate is to streamline domestic cricket which is the backbone of our cricket.”
“I have got back to cricket after a gap of four years and there is a lot of work to be done in order to bring overall improvement to strength our cricket ” said Najam Sethi.