Boycott on the Job.

The high profile cum highly priced Coach, Geoffrey Boycott is on the job at the Gaddafi stadium Lahore, where he remains surrounded by the players both young as well as old. Having received lot of publicity, he is like a hero swarmed by the cricket fans at the ground and other autograph hunters at the McDonald in the evening.

During his first press conference at the local McDonald immediately after his arrival, Geoff announced that he was in Pakistan to train and coach the raw talent and not the senior members of the Pakistan team. He very frankly admitted that senior players like Saeed Anwar, Inzamam ul Haq and Wasim Akram did not need his advice. His job was to tell the youngsters, how to play the game properly. It was easy to train them.

Despite a clear mandate, he was kind enough to give some important tips to at least four members of the Pakistan team touring New Zealand namely Shahid Afridi, Saleem Elahi, Imran Nazir and Imran Farhat. While the last three have yet to make the headlines, Shahid Afridi is already a super star. By holding the world record of scoring the fastest century (in 37 balls) in one-day cricket, he is counted among the top notches, at least in the limited-overs version of the game. Called the 'pinch hitter' he has the capability of hitting a ball over the fence only with the flick of his wrist. The notable flaw in his batting is that he does not keep in mind the field positions while playing flying shots. His performance on the tour of New Zealand will show whether he learned something from the tips that he received from Boycott.

After watching the young players on the field, Boycott expressed the view that Pakistan had great talent but it was going down the drain because of some technical and physical problems. As per the schedule set by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), Boycott would be coaching around 60 talented youngsters of 15-17 years of age selected for the task. During the training camp, he is expected to teach them new techniques to improve their capabilities in batting, bowling and fielding, apart from building up their physical and mental toughness.

In the final part of his assignment he will be training a group of selected coaches who would later take on the responsibility of coaching players on club and association levels. Coaching being a slow and steady process, how well Boycott accomplishes the task in a short span of 15 days, will only be known by the results his trainees achieve plus the quality of their game.

The new PCB Constitution.

Immediately on taking over the reins of Pakistan's cricket the PCB Adhoc Committee headed by Lt. Gen. Tauqir Zia revised the Board's constitution, which has not yet been enforced. As per the General's last statement, it will be implemented as soon as the government's plan of 'devolution of power and responsibility' starts functioning in the country. Giving out some of the contents of the revised constitution he disclosed that the cricket set up would be established at district level with the elections of new office bearers.

It was further brought out that the constitution would restrict office bearers of the associations not to remain in office for more than two tenures of two years each. The specialists in cricket administration and those who handled the affairs of regional associations in the past, however, feel that the proposed contents of the new constitution will not bring some progress to the game.

In their opinion, it is not necessary to conform the organization of cricket with the political or administrative set up of the country. A fairly successful experience of the last two decades will show that while the country had provincial governments, the Cricket Board had no provincial associations. It managed the affairs of cricket through the divisional, district and city associations. This was the period when Pakistan perhaps had the strongest cricket team that brought the country the coveted honor of being the world champions.

They also feel that on a district level where not very many competent, devoted, selfless, hardworking and influential cricket organizers are available, the restriction on tenure would be detrimental to the progress as well as good governance of the game. With the government departments, private organizations and institutions already ousted from the board, the abolition of divisional associations will be a folly.

A cricket board constituted of only district level representatives, many of whom would be uneducated and lack knowledge of the game may start looking like a body of novices. In case the divisions are abolished in the new political set up, the districts may be grouped to form 'Regional Cricket Associations' and affiliated with the Board.

© CricInfo