The exclusion of Basit Ali on flimsy grounds (7 July 1997)

07 July 1997

The exclusion of Basit Ali on flimsy grounds

By Dawn Sports Reporter

KARACHI, July 6: Discarded batsman Basit Ali couldn't make to the Pakistan team for the Asia Cup because he is said to be involved in match-fixing and betting. This was the argument given by a selector during the selection committee meeting which was held at Lahore on Friday evening.

According to insiders, Zaheer Abbas pressed for the selection of Basit Ali but Haroon Rasheed objected citing the report of Intikhab Alam in which the former manager said: "Basit confessed to me that he once took money to play badly." Basit Ali, it may be mentioned, has not denied Intikhab Alam's report.

What is more interesting is that if that was the objection Haroon Rasheed had against Basit Ali, then why he agreed to pick the stylish batsman for the SAARC Gold Cup that was held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, earlier this year. Basit played innings of 21 not out, 67 and 2 in the three matches he played as Pakistan beat India in the final.

Another point to be clarified here is that the PCB neither issued him a show cause notice nor it suspended him from playing in the 1996-97 domestic circuit in which he scored 784 runs from 21 innings with a century and seven half centuries. Basit Ali, who has represented Pakistan in 49 one-day internationals scoring 1,265 runs, was also selected to appear for Pakistan in the Hong Kong Sixes tournament last year. The same selection committee had finalised the team which was led by another discarded player Rashid Latif.

Investigations further reveal that Waqar Ahmad, Secretary, PCB, also attended the selection committee meeting. Waqar, it may be recalled here that, also sat in the disciplinary committee meeting which heard Aamir Sohail on Thursday. Now he has been made a member of the committee headed by Justice Ijaz Yousuf, and having Khalid Mahmood and Mian Munir on its panel which will probe any accusations if levelled in future. Going through the constitution of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), one finds that there is no provision for a Secretary in the setup. In fact, the word Secretary has been replaced by the word Chief Executive which at the moment is Majid Khan. However, it is a condition in the constitution that the Chief Executive can have his personal secretary which in this case is Waqar Ahmad.

Thus, Waqar Ahmad's appearance in various committee meetings and nomination on a special committee seems to be unconstitutional and illegal.

Source:: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)