Senior PCB figure Naghmi to quit

The administrative revamp of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) continues apace with Shafqat Naghmi, an influential senior official from the previous regime, wanting to step down with a new chairman now in place.

Naghmi, the board's chief operating officer, joined the PCB as a seasoned governmental bureaucrat during the tenure of Nasim Ashraf in 2007 and quickly became a key figure in the board. When Ashraf resigned in August, Naghmi became, in effect, the de facto head of the board. But the arrival of Ijaz Butt, with whom he is believed to have a poor relationship, has prompted him to reconsider his future.

"I don't think I have much to contribute to this administration," Naghmi told Cricinfo. "Apparently a letter has been sent to the government from the board asking them to appoint me somewhere else. I came here because it is a game we all love in this country and I wanted to contribute to it."

There seems little doubt he will not go, especially in light of a statement made by Butt at his first press conference since becoming chairman. Responding to reports that senior officials had been trying to take away documents and files from the board's headquarters at Gaddafi Stadium, Butt seemingly singled out Naghmi. "Yesterday there was a man running out - with due apologies it was the chief operating officer, who tried to take some files with him in his car."

Nadeem Akram, director HR and another key figure in the Ashraf administration, has been eased out, while reports suggest that Mansoor Suhail, director media, will also go the way of Naghmi, and back to a government posting.

The developments come swiftly on the heels of the resignation of Salahuddin Ahmed as chief selector and that of Talat Ali, the team's manager over the last two years. One official summed up the changes succinctly: "The board has apparently become a revenge house where each administration tries to eradicate everything and everyone from the previous one."