Step motherly treatment is continuing with Pakistan’s most historical cricket stadium, the National Stadium in Karachi, popularly known as NSK.
The chairman PCB Ehsan Mani, who was appointed more than a month ago, has still not visited the stadium so far due to which the employees are doing whatever they want.
Its academy remains without a director. Hundreds of tonnes of scrap has disappeared from the stadium. The NSK is still deprived of a qualified curator, a survey conducted by Score Line revealed.
Informed sources disclosed that the expensive, 8mm thick glass of media boxes, which was removed because of the ongoing development work at NSK, instead of being put in stores has been shifted to the residence of a former top official.
Tonnes of scrap lying in the stadium, stated to be worth millions of rupees, have been sold without any paperwork.
The PCB high-ups in Lahore did not care about the prestige of NSK and left it to low-cadre, narrow-minded employees. There is no need of dozens of employees, who do nothing but seek ways to mint money.
The sources said that peons, clerks and other low-cadre employees got huge promotions during the tenure of former PCB chairmen Shaharyar Khan and Najam Sethi due to their being close with some high officials in PCB headquarters. No one is asking them about their wrongdoings.
The pitches are the most important part of any cricket ground. But at NSK, since the retirement of Ehsan Arain, two years ago, curators have been transferred from Hyderabad’s Niaz cricket stadium, where neither international cricket nor domestic cricket has been played for a long time.
It may be noted that since the establishment of the cricket academy, there has been no qualified curator for the pitches inside the main ground or the academy.
If PCB officials had been sincere in maintaining pitches at NSK, they could have given extension to Ehsan, Pakistan’s most experienced curator. But who cares!
The PCB high officials always proved that they did not have any interest in running the Hanif Muhammad High Performance Center, which is for cricketers of Sindh and Baluchistan. First, they took seven years to complete it. Second, the appointment of the director at the academy has never been a priority.
The High Performance Centre has been inoperative since the resignation of former Test cricketer Iqbal Qasim, who worked for a short period.
Haroon Rasheed worked here just for three days after his appointment, and once again was called back to Lahore, and given the position of director domestic cricket once again.
Haroon is considered a favourite of PCB despite the series of his failures. He has held four to five different positions, including that of chairman national selection committee, since his appointment in the PCB.
The NSK needs a highly educated officer who also knows the game of cricket and understands the importance of this stadium. The newly-renovated NSK would be ruined if the current management continued.