Back in the fall of 2008 when it was officially announced that Ijaz Butt will take over as chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), I had a chat with Shafqat Nagmi, who was still serving as the Board’s chief operating officer at that time.

Weeks ago, Dr. Nasim Ashraf had resigned on August 18 just hours after General Pervez Musharraf stepped down as President of Pakistan. Ashraf’s tenure was a turbulent one which meant he received a fair share of criticism from the media. Some of Ashraf’s critics never forgot the fact that he was handpicked by Musharraf and almost came out of nowhere to head the PCB. With the announcement that Ijaz Butt, a former Test cricketer, who had previously served as secretary of the Board, will take over as chairman there was hope (at least in a section of the media) that things would change for the better.

Naghmi didn’t think so. "If the media people thought he (Ashraf) was a bad chairman then they should wait and see what the new fellow (Butt) does to Pakistan cricket," he told me.

A few days later, Naghmi quit PCB and went back to the world of bureaucracy. Pakistan cricket, meanwhile had to live with a temperamental septuagenarian for the next three years. Butt oversaw what was a tumultuous period for Pakistan cricket. Instead of dealing wisely with sensitive matters he only added fuel to fire especially after major incidents like the 2009 terrorist attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore. Many of the wounds that dogged PCB during those times were of its own making.

I fear that what happened during Butt’s era could happen again. That’s because the post Najam Sethi days have now started to feel like déjà vu.

Just like Nasim Ashraf, Sethi was a political appointment as he was handpicked by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to head the PCB. Sethi had no cricketing experience and hence his appointment was justly criticised. When the new government took over, one of the early steps taken by Prime Minister Imran Khan was to bring in Ehsan Mani as the new PCB chief. The move was generally welcomed considering that unlike Sethi, Mani had extensive cricketing credential, having headed the International Cricket Council (ICC) in the past.

Soon after taking over, Mani said all the right things. He promised to put Pakistan cricket back on track by bringing in more professionalism in the PCB. Ijaz Butt gave similar assurances after assuming the Board’s command. Unfortunately, Mani has so far failed to walk the talk. Just like Ijaz Butt.

To be fair, it’s too early to call Mani a failure. But the early signs don’t look very good.

I met Mani at a Dubai hotel in September. He urged patience and said that he would need a few months to put his house in order. He sounded very convincing when stressing that by forming a powerful cricket committee, the PCB would be able to give the job of dealing with cricketing matters to former cricketers. "That, I believe, is the right way to do things," he said.

A few weeks later, Mani did install a cricket committee headed by Mohsin Khan, the former Pakistan Test opener. It included Wasim Akram, Misbah-ul-Haq and Urooj Mumtaz.

The formation of this committee was supposed to be a masterstroke from the new PCB chairman. It turned out to be a major blunder.

The committee has come under criticism from day one because of Wasim’s inclusion in it. Wasim was one of the high-profile figures in the Justice Qayyum report on match-fixing.  Though Mani defended the move, he and the PCB had to suffer a lot of mickey-taking over the issue and deservedly so.

Mohsin didn’t help matters either with his remarks about Sarfraz Ahmed and why he feels that the wicketkeeper-batsman shouldn’t stay as Pakistan captain in all three formats. Before that Mohsin had called Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur a "stupid donkey" in a TV programme.

It is apparent that Mani didn’t really do his homework before appointing the cricket committee, a body which was supposed to make PCB’s job of running Pakistan cricket easier. Both Wasim, because of his past, and Mohsin, because of his current position as a TV analyst, were bad choices.

Don’t get me wrong. Both of them have ample cricketing stature but the committee needed cricketers, who carried no baggage. It needed cricketers like Majid Khan, the former Pakistan captain. But the problem with a politically-appointed chairman is that he has to take dictation from the PM House. During our meeting in Dubai, I asked Mani whether the Prime Minister, because of his rich cricketing background, takes an active interest in PCB matters. Mani replied, "I’ve told the prime minister to run the country and let me run Pakistan cricket".

Mani pretends to be his own man but it’s pretty clear he isn’t really calling the shots. I’m sure that the return of Zakir Khan in PCB’s corridors of power isn’t his decision. I don’t think that Mohsin, who is a member of the ruling PTI, was chosen to head the cricket committee because he is the greatest mind in Pakistan cricket. Many of us do wonder whether the PCB overlooked Justice Qayyum report to include Akram in the committee because of his close association with the ‘Skipper’. Over the years, Mani has been a staunch critic of the conflict of interest issue. But he has kept quiet in the case of Inzamam-ul-Haq, another member of the triumphant squad of World Cup ‘92.

Over the years, PCB chairmen have served their masters and Mani doesn’t come across as an exception. He came in with the promises of changing what is a flawed system. But so far it seems that it’s the system that is changing him.