Domestic set-up needs a revamp - Imran

Imran Khan, the former Pakistan captain, believes a revamp is needed in the domestic structure of the game in the country, with fewer teams in the fray and a more professional body at the helm.

"Pakistani cricket needs to become truly professional; it needs to be made into an institution," Imran said in an interview to pakpassion.net. "These departments [teams] are a cancer within Pakistani cricket, we need to get rid of them and replace them with a maximum of seven regional first-class teams." Pakistan's domestic first-class competition, the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, was contested by 13 regional teams and nine departments [SNGPL, the Gas department, won] in 2007-08.

"These teams should be represented by regional associations with elected members and the chairman of the PCB should be someone who is elected by the same regional associations."

Under the current system, Pakistan's president appoints the chairman of the PCB, one which Imran felt must be done away with. "We need to separate politics and sport. It's unacceptable for the head of state to appoint the PCB Chairman. This ad-hoc system needs to stop, we need a full-time salaried head of the PCB who is selected solely on merit and not because of his connections. It's not rocket science, it's the same system in place elsewhere."

Imran did not, however, blame the PCB for the Champions Trophy postponement, nor the teams reluctant to visit the country. "I don't think there was anything else they could have done to change the decision that was made," he said. "The PCB are paying for the mess we made when we joined someone else's war and made it into our war. Because of that decision we now have a domestic situation that understandably makes other teams reluctant to tour Pakistan. I don't think we can blame the teams in isolation, they were just following the advice given to them by their foreign offices about Pakistan being a dangerous and unsafe place."