The election for the next PCB chairman will take place on June 27, with Zaka Ashraf poised to return as the country’s head of cricket.
In a press statement, Ahmed Shehzad Farooq Rana, the acting Chairman of the PCB and Election Commissioner, stated: “The election of the PCB Chair will be held on Tuesday, June 27, at the PCB headquarters in Lahore in a fair and transparent manner while adopting due process and ensuring completion of all legal formalities. After collecting nominations from the departments and service organisations, the election timetable will be released.”
The ten-member PCB board will be made up of two patron/prime minister nominees, two representatives from services organisations, and four regional representatives. The chairman of the board as well as the other members will all be appointed for three years.
Ashraf and Mustafa Ramday, both attorneys for the Supreme Court, joined the board earlier this week after receiving the Prime Minister’s nomination. A Prime Minister appointee in Pakistan typically rises to the position of Board Chairman.
This comes after Najam Sethi, who was in charge of the temporary management team that oversaw the PCB until June 20th, withdrew from the running to be Chairman. After Ramiz Raja was fired as Chairman and the 2019 constitution was abandoned, the Sethi-led management committee was assigned the task of reviving the PCB’s 2014 constitution and creating the board of governors.
Sethi’s list of candidates for the board, however, created a legal tangle because Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, and Rawalpindi were designated as being excluded from the rotation.
Rana rejected Sethi’s nominations in the press release and substituted representatives from Larkana, Dera Murad Jamali, Bahawalpur, and Hyderabad in their stead. The four departments are Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited, Sui Southern Gas Company, National Bank of Pakistan, and State Bank of Pakistan.
Sethi had terminated Ashraf’s initial term as PCB chairman in 2014. The chairmanship was being contested in court at the time between the two, and it frequently changed hands. Finally, the problem was resolved by dismissing Ashraf and installing Sethi, then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.