The first time I saw Ejaz Butt was more than half a century ago. Earlier this year I saw him again. I was seized with the sea change that age, fatigue and stress had wrought on the man who ruled over hearts at the Lahore Stadium, long before Zulfikar Ali Bhutto renamed it the 'Gaddafi Stadium.' Butt made a picture-perfect pose when he batted. A ball once smacked his face giving him a bloody nose. The whole stadium stood up in hushed silence. We cried.
No one is crying for Butt today facing imminent collapse. Instead newspaper editorials want him sent back to the pavilion. Butt seems to have lost control over the cricket board affairs entrusted to him by Asif Zardari just over a year ago. Remember the mini-czar Dr Nasim Ashraf? The fellow was a successful kidney doctor living outside Washington DC. Bored stiff tinkering with American kidneys, the peripatetic surgeon sought more pizzazz in his dull life. Big czar Musharraf handed him the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) carte blanche to play with as he wished. It was a bad move. Ashraf played havoc. His predecessor, ambassador (retd) Shaharyar Khan (president 2003-06), patched up the bang-ups brought upon by Gen (retd) Tauqir Zia (1999-2003). And before Tauqir we had Mujibur Rehman, the flashy businessman and brother of Saifur Rehman, Nawaz Sharif's notorious right-hand man.
Our masters treat the PCB as their handmaiden. Zardari gave Butt the job allegedly to compensate his brother-in-law Ahmad Mukhtar who was not made the prime minister. Scroll down the PCB's chief executive list and you'll find a businessman, a general, an ambassador, a physician and a test cricketer-turned tycoon in the last ten years. Other than the ambassador (he too earned media flak towards his end), all have proved to be knuckleheads. Some months ago I asked Air Marshal (r) Nur Khan, president PCB (1980 to 84) why everyone rated him the best president. "It's got nothing to do with cricket," said the octogenarian. "It's all about good governance." He listed some 'must-do' measures undertaken by him to make the PCB as strong as he had made the PIA when he was its chairman. "I never let politics interfere with merit. I never played favourites. I kept my eye on the ball. And I practiced what I preached."
Everything can be fixed if you take politics out of the equation and concentrate on good governance. This was the wisdom l I received from Nur Khan along with a rap that afternoon when we met at lunch. "I don't like you (the media) painting a doom-and-gloom picture of Pakistan today," he gave me a look as cold as steel. "It's wrong to spread such negativity." Instead, he wanted the press to hammer away at demanding 'good governance.' I tried to defend myself by saying that good governance could only be had if people at the top were honest, sincere and hardworking, adding "the way you were." Unconvinced, Nur Khan shook his head and said "there are still institutions blessed with good governance. Write about them."
President Zardari boasts of being a businessman first, a politician later. He well knows how Pakistan can mine the billion-dollar cricket industry. His wife Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto put him in charge of the 1996 World Cup. The First Gentleman converted his secretariat into a moneymaking machine pulling off a deluxe bonanza for his country. In those halcyon days we all came together and were proud to be Pakistanis.
What now should the patron of cricket do? Give Ejaz Butt another job and go in a huddle with cricket experts to vote on who should head the PCB.
Source
No one is crying for Butt today facing imminent collapse. Instead newspaper editorials want him sent back to the pavilion. Butt seems to have lost control over the cricket board affairs entrusted to him by Asif Zardari just over a year ago. Remember the mini-czar Dr Nasim Ashraf? The fellow was a successful kidney doctor living outside Washington DC. Bored stiff tinkering with American kidneys, the peripatetic surgeon sought more pizzazz in his dull life. Big czar Musharraf handed him the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) carte blanche to play with as he wished. It was a bad move. Ashraf played havoc. His predecessor, ambassador (retd) Shaharyar Khan (president 2003-06), patched up the bang-ups brought upon by Gen (retd) Tauqir Zia (1999-2003). And before Tauqir we had Mujibur Rehman, the flashy businessman and brother of Saifur Rehman, Nawaz Sharif's notorious right-hand man.
Our masters treat the PCB as their handmaiden. Zardari gave Butt the job allegedly to compensate his brother-in-law Ahmad Mukhtar who was not made the prime minister. Scroll down the PCB's chief executive list and you'll find a businessman, a general, an ambassador, a physician and a test cricketer-turned tycoon in the last ten years. Other than the ambassador (he too earned media flak towards his end), all have proved to be knuckleheads. Some months ago I asked Air Marshal (r) Nur Khan, president PCB (1980 to 84) why everyone rated him the best president. "It's got nothing to do with cricket," said the octogenarian. "It's all about good governance." He listed some 'must-do' measures undertaken by him to make the PCB as strong as he had made the PIA when he was its chairman. "I never let politics interfere with merit. I never played favourites. I kept my eye on the ball. And I practiced what I preached."
Everything can be fixed if you take politics out of the equation and concentrate on good governance. This was the wisdom l I received from Nur Khan along with a rap that afternoon when we met at lunch. "I don't like you (the media) painting a doom-and-gloom picture of Pakistan today," he gave me a look as cold as steel. "It's wrong to spread such negativity." Instead, he wanted the press to hammer away at demanding 'good governance.' I tried to defend myself by saying that good governance could only be had if people at the top were honest, sincere and hardworking, adding "the way you were." Unconvinced, Nur Khan shook his head and said "there are still institutions blessed with good governance. Write about them."
President Zardari boasts of being a businessman first, a politician later. He well knows how Pakistan can mine the billion-dollar cricket industry. His wife Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto put him in charge of the 1996 World Cup. The First Gentleman converted his secretariat into a moneymaking machine pulling off a deluxe bonanza for his country. In those halcyon days we all came together and were proud to be Pakistanis.
What now should the patron of cricket do? Give Ejaz Butt another job and go in a huddle with cricket experts to vote on who should head the PCB.
Source
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