A day-long seminar was held in Lahore today on the cricket affairs which was presided by Lt Gen Tauqir Zia, Chairman PCB and attended by a group of former Test Cricketers and senior officials of PCB.

The purpose was to get the views of the senior cricketers on the recent performance of the Pakistan Cricket team. All the participants actively participated in identifying the problems and suggesting future course of action, The participants were of the view that the main problem of the players was the lack of fitness, a proper game plan and confidence.

The Chairman PCB told the cricketers that the reports received from the Manager, Coach and the Doctor had expressed similar views about the team performance. It was opined by the Cricketers that fresh talent should be developed as ready replacement for the players who may lack form or fitness. The participants suggested that there should be more tours by Pakistan 'A', U-19 and U-17 to other countries on reciprocal basis.

The discussion also considered the plan about the possible replacement of the Coach of the team. The Chairman PCB informed the gathering, as stated earlier, that Richard Pybus was coming to Pakistan to mee him on 21st September in this connection.

The participants of the seminar included Fazal Mahmood, Imtiaz Ahmed, Saeed Ahmed, Abdul Qadir, Ijaz Butt, Aamer Sohail, Wasim Bari, Zaheer Abbas, Iqbal Qasim, Nasim-ul-Ghani, Faqir Aizazuddin, Sikander Bakht, Agha Zahid, Mr Chisty Mujahid, Director PCB and senior officials of PCB.

The other former players who were invited but could not attend because of their previous commitments were Majid Khan, Intikhab Alam, Javed Miandad, Waqar Hasan (out of the country), Hanif Mohammad, Haseeb Ahsan (indisposed) and Zulfiqar Ahmed (indisposed). Mr Gul Hameed Bhatti was also requested but was unable to attend because of some other urgent work.

Khalid Butt
Media Manager
18 Septemebr 2002

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