ISLAMABAD, JULY 17: In yet another dramatic turn in the murky state of cricket in the country, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has been suspended and a two-member ad hoc committee constituted in its place following the nation wide outcry over the team's humiliating defeat in the World Cup.The panel would be headed by Mujibur Rehman, brother of Saif-ur Rehman, chairman of the government's Ehtesab (accountability) Bureau which is probing allegations against ``objectionable activities'' of team officials and top players during the World Cup in England.Former skipper Imran Khan's cousin, Javed Zaman Khan, has been appointed the second member and the panel has been authorised by President Mohammad Rafiq Tarar, who suspended the PCB last night, to co-opt three or four members to run the affairs.Tarar, who is chief patron of PCB, suspended the entire management led by chairman Khalid Mahmood under powers vested in him in the board's constitution.Immediately after his appointment, Zaman Khan announced thenew committee would not go into the allegations of betting and match-fixing. ``We are not going to intervene in the investigations of the judicial commission. It has a job on hand and it knows how to work,'' he was quoted by the media as saying in Lahore.He said that the panel chief Rehman, currently in Doha (Qatar), had indicated to him that the ad hoc committee would however investigate the allegations of indiscipline in the team during the World Cup. Mujibur Rehman said he planned to ``decentralise the whole system'' and that he will chalk out his plan of action after returning home next week.``First, I will study the whole system and then get down to the bottom of the problem,'' he was quoted by the media as saying from Doha. ``I have no enemies or grudges against anyone. I respect the players and I have no affiliation with anybody,'' he said.Rehman said he would talk to those involved in running the game as part of his decentralisation plan and form committees in big cities like Karachi andLahore to take steps to revitalise the game in the country.Khalid Mahmood, chief of the suspended board was quoted by AFP as saying that the allegation of match-fixing was ``ridiculous'' and a ``conspiracy'' against PCB and the World Cup stars. Lambasting the decision to suspend the PCB, Mahmood said, ``the team has performed very well (in the World Cup) except one bad game. You cannot sack the whole board for it.``I always defended the players and I am ready to defend them even now. They are wonderful players and a very talented side,'' he said in Karachi.``None of the matches in the World Cup was fixed. It is ridiculous. It is nothing but a success of a lobby that has been maligning the Pakistan team since the World Cup final. They have prevailed, but at the cost of the national heroes,'' he added.The Ehtesab Bureau had been asked by the government to look into allegations that Pakistan players made merry into the wee hours throughout the competition in England, while Khalid Mahmood had spokenagainst such a move.The suspension of PCB comes barely a few days after the PCB council, the supreme body of the board, which met last Sunday strongly defended the Wasim Akram-led team, rejecting all allegations of betting and match-fixing during the World Cup.Govt clearance for ties with India: A member of the newly-appointed ad-hoc committee has said the government will henceforth be consulted before green signal was given for any future cricketing tie with India. Javed Zaman Khan, a member of the ad hoc body said from Lahore that the Foreign Office would be consulted before the committee approved any future matches between Pakistan and India.Khan, however, said the committee would like to honour all international commitments of the Pakistan cricket team.`Players could be targetted next'Mahmood expects the country's leading players to be the next target. He said that he was surprised at the sudden suspension of the board the second time this decade the country's cricket board has beensuspended. The first was in January 1994 after a change in governments.``The feeling in Islamabad is that the final was a no-game. Logically, if the top hierachy believes that the match was deliberately thrown, then the players should be the next target,'' Mahmood told Reuters from Lahore.``My perception is that the board has been suspended because of match-fixing allegations which are not only unproven but false and baseless.``I now think it will be the main issue in days to come and some of the frontline players might be made scapegoats to justify the sacking of the board,'' Mahmood said.Former and current Test players declined to comment, but one dismissed board member told a local newspaper the suspension was political.``This is all politics and nothing else. If they don't want Pakistan cricket to improve and prosper, what can we do. It doesn't matter to us,'' Nusrat Azeem, who was also dismissed as president of the Karachi Cricket Association, told The News.
