Nur Khan expanded cricket's boundaries

Nur Khan, the former head of the PCB who passed away recently, would be remembered as a visionary when it came to sports administration, even though cricket wasn't his favourite sport, writes Osman Samiuddin in the National. He proposed the idea of neutral umpires in Tests long before the concept was introduced.

At the very first meeting he attended of the International Cricket Conference (as the ICC was then) as head of the Pakistan board, Nur Khan told those around him he was ashamed to be sitting with them.

"I've been involved in other sports and they solved issues by building a proper institution, not a private body like the MCC," he later remembered. "I said aren't you ashamed after so many years that hockey and other sports have 80-90 members? Squash had many countries and here you are only six or seven after so many years?"