da prosport bet： A petition challenging the formation of the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB)women’s wing has been filed in Lahore High Court
Osman Samiuddin08-May-2007
Who should administer women’s cricket in Pakistan? © Getty Images
A petition challenging the formation of the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB)women’s wing has been filed in Lahore High Court. The court has asked thePCB chairman; the head of the women’s cricket wing, and the federal sportsministry to file their replies by May 17.The petition was filed by Shaiza Khan, the president of Pakistan Women’s CricketControl Association (PWCCA), whose body has been embroiled in a long-runningbattle with various PCB administrations (and, at one time, two otherindependent bodies) to be recognised as the legitimate body for women’scricket in Pakistan.Khan has already played in three Tests and 40 ODIs andwas widely acknowledged as being the sole driving force behind women’scricket in Pakistan in the 1990s.She told Cricinfo that setting up a women’s wing is in direct contraventionof the board’s constitution. “There is nothing in the constitution to saythey can set up a women’s wing,” she said. “They have to make an amendment to it.”The board currently operates, and has done so since 1999, on an ad-hocbasis. Despite sustained criticism and protest, the constitution remains inlimbo, pending approval from law authorities.But Khan points out that even operating on an ad-hoc basis prevents theboard from making any structural changes. “There is a legal ruling from 1995that says that the ad-hoc committee cannot make structural changes likethis.”The PWCCA has been recognised as the official women’s cricket body byvarious board chairmen in the past, including Arif Abbasi and Tauqir Zia. Itwas under Shaharyar Khan’s tenure that the women’s wing was set up by thePCB, much to the consternation of Khan.”Shaharyar Khan had sent us a letter discussing cooperation,” she said, “but he withdrew the letter a few days before our meeting with the IWCCA in South Africa about the merger of women’s cricket bodies with national bodies.”Khan has also met the incumbent PCB chairman Nasim Ashraf in February who hasoffered to look into the matter, but she has refrained from contacting the ICC. “We haven’t been in touch with them because the matter needsto be sorted out here in Pakistan, and not outside.Though the wing was set up in 2004, Khan says it has taken this long tofind a lawyer willing to fight the case. “We want to reinstitute the PWCCAwith its own constitution. That is the aim of challenging the formation ofthe women’s wing.”