Good to know people like Khalid Sahib still around here 
Another Intriguing Ploy by Pakistan Cricket Board
KARACHI, Jan 4:** There is no doubt whatsoever that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) operates in an intriguing manner as compared to their counterparts in other Test-playing countries.
There is no shortage of ideas in what is arguably the most powerful sports organization which claims itself to be the richest in Pakistan. **
The PCB’s ‘unofficial’ announcement earlier in the week to provide back-up support to the World Cup playing squad smacks of favouritism if nothing less.
**How can an already cash-strapped body like the PCB afford the luxury of sending five additional officials to a event like the World Cup in South Africa?
If back-up support at exorbitant costs is the criteria to win sports mega events then oil-rich Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates should have won the football World Cup by now. ** :rotfl:
Not for the last time, **PCB claims that the main reason behind this exercise, which may ultimately prove futile, is to boost up the players in a bid to win the World Cup!
One would dearly like to ask the chairman of the cricket board why such wastage of precious public money? Can he guarantee that Pakistan is actually going to lift the World Cup? And even if so, why is it necessary to perpetrate what the players want PCB to do?
One is not sure why PCB always dances to the tune played by our so-called superstars, if it is true. Then why only a mega event like World Cup is an exception to the rules.
Ever since, Lt Gen Tauqir Zia took over the charge of PCB in December of 1999, Pakistan’s international playing graph has alarmingly shown downward trend. *The only titles they currently hold are Asia Cup and the Sharjah Cup. *
The body language of Pakistan team in the current Test in Cape Town is already sending wrong signals. The attitude on the field on the first day of the match suggested that many of the players are almost fed up with cricket. **
This indifferent attitude enabled the South African opening pair of Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith to thrash the living daylights out of Waqar Younis’ men in a record-breaking partnership.
**It won’t come as a great surprise if morale of Pakistan team is further demoralized in the shape of yet another crushing defeat in their last major assignment before the World Cup. ** :disgust:
With this kind of attitude and thinking, how can we expect these well-paid mercenaries to help Pakistan win the World Cup. **The generosity of PCB to boost up its heroes for the tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa with performance enhanced emoluments as incentives has badly backfired on the second leg of the trip.
In sheer desperation the PCB chief is leaving no stone unturned by publicly stating that each member of the squad stands to get a bonus of Rs five million from the cricket board if Pakistan clinch the World Cup. **
So one can imagine the reasons behind PCB chief’s decision to send a large delegation of officials on joyride with the squad.
The World Cup organizing committee will provide hospitality for only three officials other than 15 players from each visiting country. The expenses of the remaining individuals will have to be borne by respective national cricket boards.
**Basically, the essential requirements of a team are manager, who is responsible of handling administrative and logistic matters, a coach who works out strategies with the captain and other senior players, a physiotherapist to ensure the players are in peak fitness, a doctor to see that no health problems afflict players and an analyst to provide additional information through the help of computer graphs.
Then why need a bowling coach of all people when there are noticeable shortcomings in the batting and fielding areas of current national squad. **
Daryl Foster, the Australian who was hired for the tour of England in 2001 and who subsequently worked at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore as a bowling coach, is being re-engaged on a lucrative six-month contract as PCB continues its policy of obsession with foreigners. **He is to make sure that Shoaib Akhtar is nursed properly. **
**Then there is the case of Dr Tauseef Razzaq. The reason of his joining the World Cup bandwagon is truly amazing. He is being assigned the job of a trainer as well as taking personal care of who else but Shoaib Akhtar.
There are already two people in the squad who can be easily classified as ‘trainers’. Both Richard Pybus, :mad: the coach, and physio Dennis Waight are basically trainers. While the credentials of Pybus as a coach are questionable since he has never played cricket at any level, :rolleyes: Waight, for a long time, was attached with the West Indies when they were the undisputed world champions in the 1980s. **
Tauseef’s inclusion does not justify especially when there is already a team doctor (Riaz Ahmed) around. If the PCB just wanted to oblige Tauseef, then why Dr Meesaq Rizvi, an athlete who represented the country in many international meets, was not invited despite being on the PCB’s panel of doctors.
Aamir Siddique, the psychologist-cum-psychiatrist designate, is also back in favour. This gentleman, who operates a human resources firm in Lahore, was sacked after the Nairobi triangular tournament. But according to PCB he is now needed to lift the sagging morale of our players.
While the PCB has spent a small of matter of Rs 145 million on infrastructure developments of stadia and grounds since June 2000, nobody is willing to answer who is responsible of the maintenance of these completed projects. One of them, the TMC Ground in Federal ‘B’ Area of Karachi, has already met its fate barely days after it was inaugurated by PCB chairman himself.
**Never in the history of Pakistan cricket, media people were obliged at PCB’s expense as being done by the present setup just to appease them so that they will tone down their rhetoric and in return gain positive publicity.
Then how come the PCB spends public money on these ventures. So far, the PCB, under Tauqir’s leadership, has yet to have its accounts audited for apparent reasons since such a practice will surely spill a lot of beans and leave the entire cricket board exposed. **