Pakistan cricket's administration crisis took a fresh turn on Thursday after Najam Sethi was removed as chief of Pakistan Cricket Board for the third time and former judge Jamshed Ali Shah was installed as interim chief. The latest decision came from prime minister Nawaz Sharif, also a patron of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).
"After the approval of the PCB constitution by the honourable patron, the ministry of Inter-provincial committee, has notified that a new election commissioner will hold elections as an interim PCB chief within 30 days," Irfanullah Khan, lawyer for government's Inter-provincial committee, told AFP. Khan said the decision meant the PCB Interim Management Committee and its head Sethi would be removed.
It is the latest twist in an at-times-baffling 15-month crisis triggered in May last year when Sethi's predecessor Zaka Ashraf was sacked by Islamabad high court over dubious elections. Since then court rulings and government decrees have seen the leadership of the PCB change hands between Sethi and Ashraf five times. After Ashraf was sacked by the court in May 2013 he was briefly restored twice - in January and May this year.
Sethi had challenged Ashraf's second restoration in the Supreme court which stalled lower court's order to allow him (Sethi) to continue working. The latest twist is seen as an attempt by the government to get Sethi elected and all the previous court cases annulled. But the game of musical chairs has stained Pakistan's cricketing image world-wide and the frequent changes have prompted derision among the national and international media.
Jamshed Ali Shah, a retired judge in the Pakistan judiciary who has worked with the PCB as head of its integrity committee, told media he will perform day-to-day duties. "I will implement the new PCB constitution and focus on holding the elections as per my responsibility," Shah told reporters.
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