Changes in the PCB

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Pakistan cricket

New-look PCB rings in the changes

Cricinfo staff

October 17, 2008

The first raft of administrative changes have started taking place in the PCB under the leadership of new chairman Ijaz Butt. The selection committee has been re-jigged temporarily, while the team manager, Talat Ali, has decided to step down from his post.

Butt, a former Test player, took over ten days ago, in the aftermath of which chief selector Salahuddin Ahmed stepped down. **The board announced today that Shafqat Rana, a member of the selection committee, has also resigned from his position. **

Saleem Jaffar, the former fast bowler, and the remaining member of the previous three-man committee, becomes the chairman of selectors for now. He will be in charge of selection for the Hong Kong Sixes tournament and the three-ODI series against West Indies in Abu Dhabi next month. **The two new members of the committee are former Test batsmen Ijaz Ahmed and Shoaib Mohammad. The junior selection committee has been disbanded. **

In another significant change, Talat Ali has also resigned as manager of the team. Talat had been manager of the side since October 2006 and his appointment at the time was a move towards stability, away from the tradition of appointing managers series-by-series basis. **Though he was brought in for ensuring discipline, a number of high-profile incidents marred his tenure. **

“I have no regrets as I wanted to make way for the new chairman to bring his own team,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to Mr Butt but I feel its the right time to leave the job and make way for some other person.”

Importantly, Talat was also seen as part of a strong clique in the team that included captain Shoaib Malik and Geoff Lawson, the coach, as well as a couple of other players.

Rarely has a month gone by in the last year where reports of dissent within the team against this group have not been present. His departure and Butt’s recent less-than-flattering comments about Lawson mean that more changes in the team set-up cannot be entirely ruled out.

**Sultan Rana will accompany the Hong Kong Sixes team as manager while Yawar Saeed, a veteran administrator and former manager, will take over for the ODI series in Abu Dhabi. **

Reports in the press have suggested that Shafqat Naghmi, chief operating officer and a key official in Nasim Ashraf’s regime, is also set to stand down.

Source: Cricinfo.

I wonder if these people were forced to resign or resigned as they probably knew chop was coming.

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Pakistan news

Senior PCB figure Naghmi to quit

Cricinfo staff

October 20, 2008

The administrative revamp of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) continues apace with Shafqat Naghmi, an influential senior official from the previous regime, wanting to step down with a new chairman now in place.

Naghmi, the board’s chief operating officer, joined the PCB as a seasoned governmental bureaucrat during the tenure of Nasim Ashraf in 2007 and quickly became a key figure in the board. When Ashraf resigned in August, Naghmi became, in effect, the de facto head of the board. But the arrival of Ijaz Butt, with whom he is believed to have a poor relationship, has prompted him to reconsider his future.

“I don’t think I have much to contribute to this administration,” Naghmi told Cricinfo. “Apparently a letter has been sent to the government from the board asking them to appoint me somewhere else. I came here because it is a game we all love in this country and I wanted to contribute to it.”

There seems little doubt he will not go, especially in light of a statement made by Butt at his first press conference since becoming chairman.** Responding to reports that senior officials had been trying to take away documents and files from the board’s headquarters at Gaddafi Stadium, Butt seemingly singled out Naghmi. “Yesterday there was a man running out - with due apologies it was the chief operating officer, who tried to take some files with him in his car.” **

Nadeem Akram, director HR and another key figure in the Ashraf administration, has been eased out, while reports suggest that Mansoor Suhail, director media, will also go the way of Naghmi, and back to a government posting.

The developments come swiftly on the heels of the resignation of Salahuddin Ahmed as chief selector and that of Talat Ali, the team’s manager over the last two years. One official summed up the changes succinctly: “The board has apparently become a revenge house where each administration tries to eradicate everything and everyone from the previous one.”

© Cricinfo

Source: Cricinfo.