Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the Patron in Chief of PCB, appointed Najam Sethi, as Chairman PCB for the third time on December 22, after the first-ever whitewash of Pakistan team on home soil.

When Ramiz Raja, a member of the 1992 Cricket World Cup-winning team and close associate of Imran Khan, was appointed as Chairman PCB, the cricket fraternity was overjoyed and hoped that cricket affairs in Pakistan would be put on the right track, but unfortunately Raja's stint as chairman PCB would not be remembered as anything close to ideal.

His efforts to strengthen the new PCB constitution of 2019 and promotion of six-region cricket and abolition of departmental cricket in the absence of a mature parallel model failed to produce the desired results.

Raja was lucky to find Pakistan in the finals of ICC T20 World Cup in Australia, thanks primarily to Netherlands, who sent South Africa tumbling out of semifinal contention with a lucky 13-run victory in Adelaide.

But the team management and leadership had to face harsh criticism, when Pakistan were whitewashed three- nil in the home Test series for the first time on docile wickets.

Ramiz Raja was the fourth former Pakistani Test cricketer after Abdul Hafeez Kardar, Javed Burki and Ijaz Butt to lead the cricket affairs in the country.

The continuous decline of Pakistan cricket affairs forced the patron in chief to appoint Najam Sethi, who successfully hosted the first ever PSL final in Lahore in March 2017, and brought ICC World XI to Pakistan to play three T20s, in a challenging security environment.

Sethi also had clarity of purpose while appointing Mickey Arthur as head coach of the national team. The decision helped Pakistan win the ICC Champions Trophy in 2017. Sethi resigned from his office in 2018 when Imran Khan took over the PM office in 2018.

Sethi has been entrusted with the task to defuse the minefields laid by the previous regime. This time the challenge is more daunting, because extensions and repeated stints at top positions in Pakistan are not a very comfortable experiment.

The leaders either get carried away because of their previous successes, or the old associates quickly gather around the leader for their personal interest and benefits and mislead him to short term success instead of building a legacy.

The Chairman has taken a few immediate and prudent steps. He has restored the 2014 constitution of PCB. It will help thousands of out of job cricketers by reviving broad-based cricket activities in seventeen regions instead of six.

The Chairman has also disbanded all committees formed under the constitution of 2019, including the all-important selection committee headed by Mohammad Wasim.

Dashing all-rounder Shahid Afridi, who played 27 Tests, 398 ODIs and 99 T20Is, has been appointed as interim head of national selection committee along with my favourite all-rounder Abdul Razzaq and Rao Iftikhar Anjum. Another good choice for the committee was Sana Mir, but she opted to stay out because of personal reasons.

The interim selection committee has immediately made its presence felt, by including the deserving 27 years old batting all-rounder Kamran Ghulam from upper Dir, Hassan Ali, Mir Hamza and Shahnawaz Dahani, that will provide team captain more freedom of action and choice to pick an appropriate side to face Kiwis in home series.

I also appreciate the statement of Shahid Afridi, who has hinted at rationalizing the captaincy burden of Babar Azam, who has been overloaded with the role of leadership in all three forms of cricket, which has impacted the form of Pakistani run machine.

However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The challenges are far deeper both at national and international levels.

The chairman also needs to push the long pending issue of developing Abbottabad as a summer cricket venue and a potential Test site. This has been on the backburner since the 2005 earthquake.

Muzaffarabad has also emerged as a potential site for major cricket activities in the country, during scorching summers.

Keeping in view the climate change and persistent fog in central Punjab during the peak winter season, which is also the high cricket season in Pakistan, there is a definite need either to clear the dull and unimpressive surroundings of Rawalpindi cricket stadium, or to build a new state-of-the-art cricket stadium in the federal capital on war footings.

Another important issue to look into at domestic level is the affairs of National High Performance Center (NHPC) in Lahore. NHPC affairs are run by Nadeem Khan, Saqlain Mushtaq, Mohammad Yousuf and Mushtaq Ahmad.

NHPC is an important incubation center that helps the elite cricketers trying to stage a comeback after injuries or struggling with lack of form, and also acts as a finishing school for Pakistan "A" and grooming of junior cricketers.

In the absence of a strong cricket base in educational institutions, NHPC has a crucial role in developing technical, tactical and psychological aspects of young cricketers. PCB must spend generously out of its Rs19 billion operational budget on development of young players.

Sethi wants to appoint Mickey Arthur as the head coach of Pakistan on a long-term basis. I fully support the idea of appointing the foreign coach, because foreign coaches are not only qualified and are better at communication and strategy part of the game, but also have the ability to infuse appropriate coaching philosophy amongst the local lads, in the absence of a full time sports psychologist in the team.

The PCB top management besides appointing foreign coaches should also consider utilising the expertise of Aqib Javed and Rashid Latif because the two are among the best available in the country for game development, coaching and talent hunting assignments.

Development of women cricket in Pakistan beyond a few educational institutions in Lahore and Karachi is another daunting challenge. PCB can get physically and mentally strong athletes by investing its time and resources in developing women cricket academies in AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan.

The idea of drop-in pitches propagated by the previous regime needs to be thrown out. Abbottabad provides a perfect atmosphere for swing bowlers -- a green wicket would be a cherry on top -- to encourage the development of seam bowlers and address the inadequate techniques of Pakistani batsmen on fast tracks.

Cricket relations with India and sustainability of visits by international teams to Pakistan will be another major challenge that Sethi and his team will have to negotiate tactfully. Sethi's PR skills and international relations will be fully tested in handling sensitive matters like organisation of Asia Cup in Pakistan in September 2023 and participation in 50 overs World Cup in November 2023 in India.

At the moment, most of the players in the team are from KPK and Punjab. The PCB scouts must reach out to Baluchistan, Sindh and AJK to find more talent in both men and women teams. Sethi and his team need to put development of Bugti stadium in Quetta on a fast track.

The Raja of Cricket has been dethroned and the trusted King is back in saddles. The challenges are enormous and the resources limited, but I am sure that with clarity of objectives, the minefields will be defused and the cricket development will be put on the right path sooner than later.

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