Chairman Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Shahryar Khan and Najam Sethi, chairman of PCB's executive committee did not consult the Foreign Office before departing for India, Foreign Office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah told Business Recorder. PCB often consults the Foreign Affairs Ministry before embarking on such tours, especially to India, and the Ministry guides them from time to time, he said but added that PCB officials did not consult the Foreign Office during their recent visit to India.
"It's not in my knowledge...it [PCB] has its own board, which often takes such decision about the visit of PCB officials," Qazi said. Prime Minister is not only the patron in Chief of PCB but has also kept the Foreign Affairs portfolio and Sethi is his appointee, high-level sources pointed out, adding that "clearly the Prime Minister continues to repose full trust in Sethi's management and the recent loss of face of PCB management in India due to their ill advised decision to visit Modi's India is not likely to receive any reprimand from him."
Cricket diplomacy has been successfully employed in the past in the subcontinent but it was undertaken by the head of state or government rather than by a PCC chairman, they added. In 1987, the then military dictator, General Zia ul Haq, visited India to ostensibly attend a Pak-India cricket match and met Rajiv Gandhi, which helped ease tensions. And in 2005, General Pervez Musharraf went to India to watch a cricket match and met the then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to revive talks on Kashmir.
In 2011 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the then Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani met on the sidelines of the World Cup after India and Pakistan qualified for semi-finals which again helped ease tensions between the nuclear rivals. While talking to Business Recorder, former chairman PCB Muhammad Zaka Ashraf came down hard on Sethi and Shaharyar, for "going to India without any formal invitation from BCCI".
"These people (Shahryar and Sethi) took a courtesy invite as a formal invitation from the Indian cricket board, and embarrassed the entire nation," he stated. Zaka declared Shahryar as "dummy chairman" of the PCB, saying it is Sethi who is the de facto chairman, and the man taking decisions. "It is Sethi who is running the whole show in the PCB and he is pursuing his own interests under the garb of promotion of cricketing," he alleged. He demanded the patron-in-chief of the cricketing board, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to take action against the "irresponsible" move of Shahryar and Sethi and sack them.