LAHORE , June 16, 2023: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Management Committee Chairman Najam Sethi said on Friday it was up to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, patron of the PCB, and former president Asif Ali Zardari to select either him or Zaka Ashraf as the next board chairman.
Addressing a press conference, Sethi expressed his thoughts on the the upcoming Asia Cup, saying, “Engaging and convincing the stakeholders of the significance of the hybrid model was challenging. I held several meetings in Dubai – some of them were secret and others a matter of public knowledge. We also held multiple calls on Zoom to convince others to accept the hybrid model”.
He said: “I would like to start off by apologising for not speaking to the country’s press, but Indian media in the last three weeks. I observed that bogus news was being published in the Indian media. The hybrid model is a solution to a decade-long issue between India and Pakistan”.
“You will realise later how the hybrid model could work as a negotiating tool between India and Pakistan,” he added. “Now we come to the conclusion that after 15 long years, a multilateral tournament is going to take place in Pakistan. The journey to bring back the multilateral tournament to the country was started by holding the final of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) in Lahore in 2017,” Sethi asserted.
He said, “Due to the logistical problems, it is not possible to hold more than four matches of the Asia Cup in Pakistan. This is very important that finally a multilateral tournament is going to happen in the country”.
He said the rest of the matches had been shifted to Sri Lanka, not the United Arab Emirates (UAE), due to very warm weather in the Middle East.