KCCA officials say they were left with no option

Karachi, Aug 31: The Karachi City Cricket Association (KCCA) on Tuesday regretted that they had to go to the court but maintained that they were left with no other option.

The top KCCA officials observed that they knew that their duties were confined to playgrounds "but after we were denied our constitutional rights, we decided to seek help from the court."

The Sindh High Court (SHC), in a ruling on Tuesday morning, declared KCCA as the only eligible team to participate in the PCB organized tournaments. We have been able to establish our point, remarked KCCA president Nusrat Azeem.

Pakistan sports faced its blackest day on Monday when the police forcibly off-loaded 19 teenagers and three KCCA team officials from a Lahore-bound train. The team was proceeding to take part in the National Juniors Cup that begins on Sept 1..

Until Tuesday evening, no official inquiry had been ordered against the police action. It has still not been confirmed yet on whose instructions the police off-loaded valid ticket-holders. But some people speculated that Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) may be a party to the action against KCCA when on Tuesday morning, secretary of the KCCA, Prof Sirajul Islam Bukhari, was refused to enter his offices located in the National Stadium building.

I was stopped by the ground staff of the National Stadium at the main gate at 8:30 a.m. But I was allowed entry at 11:00 a.m. after I approached the Deputy Commissioner, he told Dawn.

Bukhari said the Governor Sindh, Commissioner of Karachi and other high ranking government officials have been informed of the police action against the KCCA. He added an official complain has been lodged.

Nusrat Azeem said as soon as the court gave the order to declare them eligible to play in the Under-19 Championship, the copy of it was faxed to cricket board in Lahore while another was delivered to cricket board's legal advisor Ali Sibtain Fazli. He added that orders have also been delivered through courier service.

Azeem and Bukhari were confident that on Wednesday, both their teams - Whites and Blues - would be playing. But member of the ad hoc committee and chairman of the Domestic Tournament Monitoring Committee Javed Zaman said from Lahore that he had no information about the Sindh High Court order. "I will check from the (PCB) legal advisor and seek his views sometime this evening," he said.

Mujeeb-ur-Rehman, chairman of the ad hoc committee, was not available for comments. In a unilateral decision, Mujeeb had suspended all the associations and had also frozen their accounts.

Bukhari said the Under-19 team for Lahore had left on Monday evening. "We succeeded to send the team to Hyderabad by road from where they proceeded to Lahore." He said following the court order, the KCCA selectors will be asked to make some changes in the teams for the second round matches. He said the selectors will be asked to consider the players who were picked by the ad hoc committee.

I think the players were misguided. They have already missed one match and I don't want that any good cricketer with a bright future is denied the right to stamp his mark at the domestic circuit, Bukhari said.

Nusrat Azeem observed that the associations have always played the role of producing cricketers from the grass roots level. "The PCB have just selected the best out of them and composed a team. We, like all the associations of the country, have protested that we should be allowed to work and contribute to the process of producing and grooming good cricketers," he stressed.