KARACHI: To the dismay of sports scribes, neither of the top Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) officials turned up for the official unveiling ceremony of the Faysal Bank T20 tournament.
It was supposed to be a ‘Meet the Press’ event but reporters were just greeted by Faysal Bank officials here at a local hotel on Friday and obviously nothing substantial and news-worthy came up.
One face-to-face meeting with PCB’s Chief Operating Officer Subhan Ahmed but it was announced that the purpose of this was to have an interaction with the press and to invite them for a lunch.
It is certainly not the kind of start PCB would have wanted and especially given the importance of the tournament. Some of the top officials of the board are in the city including Subhan Ahmed. On 22 sept, PCB’s director training and education Wasim Bari, governing board member Wazir Ali Khoja and Subhan went to Governer House and Chief Minister House for a meeting related to the T20 event.
Present on the occasion, apart from the bank officials, was discarded Test leg-spinner Danish Kaneria, who has been sidelined by the PCB from the national team on the suspicion of being involved in ‘spot-fixing’. But amazingly, he was asked to by PCB to come in the so-called ‘Meet the Press’ ceremony it has been learnt by ‘The News’.
Considering the strict attitude of the board against Kaneria by sidelining him completely from international cricket, every one was not expecting to see him attending the event as a PCB guest.
It has been learnt that the player received a call from the assistant of Zakir Khan, who was recently demoted to the post of director domestic cricket by the board, asking him to attend the event.
Such double standards raise questions about PCB’s double standards. If Kaneria is involved in any wrongdoing then he should be completely sidelined once and for all. But if he is innocent then he should be allowed to make a comeback since he is the premier Test leg-spinner of Pakistan and certainly there is no one in Pakistan, who is even half as good as Kaneria, as it was proved in the case of Yasir Shah’s outing during the recently-concluded tour of Zimbabwe.
It was supposed to be a ‘Meet the Press’ event but reporters were just greeted by Faysal Bank officials here at a local hotel on Friday and obviously nothing substantial and news-worthy came up.
One face-to-face meeting with PCB’s Chief Operating Officer Subhan Ahmed but it was announced that the purpose of this was to have an interaction with the press and to invite them for a lunch.
It is certainly not the kind of start PCB would have wanted and especially given the importance of the tournament. Some of the top officials of the board are in the city including Subhan Ahmed. On 22 sept, PCB’s director training and education Wasim Bari, governing board member Wazir Ali Khoja and Subhan went to Governer House and Chief Minister House for a meeting related to the T20 event.
Present on the occasion, apart from the bank officials, was discarded Test leg-spinner Danish Kaneria, who has been sidelined by the PCB from the national team on the suspicion of being involved in ‘spot-fixing’. But amazingly, he was asked to by PCB to come in the so-called ‘Meet the Press’ ceremony it has been learnt by ‘The News’.
Considering the strict attitude of the board against Kaneria by sidelining him completely from international cricket, every one was not expecting to see him attending the event as a PCB guest.
It has been learnt that the player received a call from the assistant of Zakir Khan, who was recently demoted to the post of director domestic cricket by the board, asking him to attend the event.
Such double standards raise questions about PCB’s double standards. If Kaneria is involved in any wrongdoing then he should be completely sidelined once and for all. But if he is innocent then he should be allowed to make a comeback since he is the premier Test leg-spinner of Pakistan and certainly there is no one in Pakistan, who is even half as good as Kaneria, as it was proved in the case of Yasir Shah’s outing during the recently-concluded tour of Zimbabwe.
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