ISLAMABAD – Should Imran Khan sack the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB)Chairman Najam Sethi who has been at loggerheads with Khan, since the 2013elections.
Imran Khan accuses Sethi – then caretaker chief minister of Punjab – oftampering with elections and helping the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz(PML-N) win. Then ruling party, in turn, rewarded Sethi with the covetedPCB chairman’s position, alleges Khan.
It has been a norm in Pakistan for the PCB chairman to be appointed andremoved along with political changes. That is one of the many wrongs thatKhan could wrong by ensuring that Sethi continues as the PCB chairman.
Politics aside, the single biggest reason for Khan to make this decision,is the current state of Pakistan cricket.
On the field, over the past two years, Pakistan have been the number oneTest side, the number one T20 side – which they currently are – and havewon the ODI Champions Trophy. In that regard, these past few years – withTest success followed by those in limited overs cricket – have been one ofthe most successful periods in Pakistan cricket history.
While a large part of the Test accolades can be credited to Misbah-ul-Haq’sleadership and ethos, as Pakistan played its cricket exiled in the UAE, thelimited-overs teams have only embraced success with the advent of thePakistan Super League.
Giving Pakistan cricket the likes of Hasan Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Shadab Khan,and many others, Sethi’s work on PSL alone is worth ending any argumentagainst him, should the debate be held in an arena of political neutrality.
Off the field, the past three years have seen the return of internationalcricket to Pakistan. While the Zimbabwe tour had taken place before thePSL, it is the tournament final in 2017 – which Khan at the time severelycriticised – being played in Lahore, which paved the way for tours of theICC World XI, Sri Lanka and West Indies, over the next 12 months.
PSL, hence, has been the single biggest factor in bringing Pakistan successon the field and off it. And Sethi has been the single biggest factor inmaking PSL possible.
Khan has argued that Sethi isn’t qualified to be the PCB chairman and thatonly a former cricketer should hold that post. The theoretical debate overthat assertion notwithstanding, Sethi has more than proved his credentialsby bringing Pakistan cricket significantly forward.