Australia series will not move to neutral venue - PCB

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has made it clear that the home series against Australia will not be shifted to a neutral venue if the tourists decide against visiting Pakistan due to safety concerns. The tour is scheduled for March-April 2008 and includes three Tests, five ODIs and a Twenty20.

"We are confident that the Australians will come and play here according to schedule,"

Shafqat Naghmi, PCB's chief operating officer, told The News.

"Either the series will be played in Pakistan or cancelled but there will be no neutral venue."

Australia's last tour of Pakistan in 2002-03 was shifted to Colombo and Sharjah due to security issues. Naghmi said that such a move will not be repeated, adding that Pakistan will provide foolproof security to the Australians. Even with that assurance, the Australian board will send a security delegation for a brief visit prior to the tour. Only after that is a final decision likely to be made.

Following months of political turmoil in Pakistan, Darren Lehmann, the Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) president, said recently that the tour will go ahead only if the security reports deem the country safe.

"Security is paramount,"

Lehmann said.

"If there's any risk at all the tour might not go ahead, but I'm not saying it won't, it still could. If security say it's fine, we will be going. The players will be guided. [The ACA] are right behind the whole process that's in place. We go and pre-visit."

According to the ICC's Future Tour Programme (FTP), Pakistan are to pay a return visit to Australia in December 2008.

"We believe that the Australians will not be at any risk in Pakistan,"

Naghmi said.

"The Australian delegation will come here in January after the general elections and we are confident that they would agree to send their team for the series."

The itinerary of the series will be finalised following the security delegation's visit.

Miandad suggests ‘hands-off’ role for Nasim

KARACHI: Former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad believes Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Nasim Ashraf should keep a ‘hands-off’ role for himself and take steps to implement the Board’s new constitution as soon as possible, writes Khalid Hussain.

“The prevailing ad-hocism in the PCB is affecting our cricket like a virus and
this system has to be scrapped as soon as possible to save the game from a
complete disaster,”

Miandad told .

In a candid interview, Miandad spoke on various issues ranging from the PCB's ongoing drive to bring in ‘corporate culture’ in the Board to the proposed overhauling of the country’s domestic cricket structure.

Miandad, counted among Pakistan’s all-time greats, minced no words in rejecting claims by top Board officials that were promoting a corporate culture in the PCB as mere lip service, saying that people like Ashraf were barking under the wrong tree.

“I don’t know what corporate culture they are talking about. If having so many
directors with fat salaries in the Board is what corporate culture is all about
then I’m sorry to say that the PCB officials are going on a wrong path.”

Miandad said that the solution of most of Pakistan cricket’s problems would be the implementation of a new constitution.

“You cannot run cricket on an ad-hoc basis. A proper system can only come in
place if the PCB is run according to its constitution.”

He stressed that once a proper system is in place, a chairman would have a minimal role in routine PCB affairs. “Once you have the PCB constitution implemented, it would no more be a one-man show and the chairman will have no value. I strongly feel that it would be a boost for Pakistan cricket, if such a development does take place because right now it is going through a very sensitive phase.”

The former batting star pointed out that in the current set-up, even the PCB top officials didn’t know for how long they would last.

“Even Nasim Ashraf doesn’t know about the length of his own tenure. This is the
kind of uncertainty that prevails in Pakistan cricket.”

Miandad, who played 124 Tests and 233 ODIs for Pakistan in an illustrious career that spanned over twenty years, said that when he started playing for Pakistan more than thirty years back, the Board was run by a small team of honorary officials and did a ‘much better job’ than today’s PCB that spends tens of millions of rupees on the monthly salaries of its employees.

“If today the Board has billions of rupees in its bank account, it doesn’t mean that they have the right to waste precious funds. Even today there are millions of youngsters in our country who can’t even afford to buy cricket bats and balls. The PCB funds should be spent on those youths.”