Ramiz Raja likely to become next PCB chairman as Ehsan Mani refuses extension

Former Pakistan batter, and PCB CEO, has been nominated to the PCB Board of Governors by prime minister Imran Khan

Former Pakistan captain Khan had initially reached out to Raja, also a former PCB chief executive, for names of potential candidates, in line with his apparent preference for an ex-player to be at the helm. But, in the absence of other obvious candidate, he is believed to have told Raja to consider himself for the post.

As for Raja, his main target, as he shared with ESPNcricinfo, is to improve Pakistan’s position on the ICC ranking tables across formats, which he referred to as “Pakistan cricket’s GPS”. “I did meet with the PM and presented him with a roadmap for how Pakistan cricket can go forward,” Raja said. “It was a cricket-centric discussion on the problems Pakistan cricket is facing and what possible steps can be taken to improve the overall performance. I am glad he called me up and heard me out. He is concerned about the state of cricket overall and is open to discussion.

“Pakistan has been extremely inconsistent and, let’s be fair, that the ranking in each format reflects that Pakistan cannot make it into the final of tournaments. The only chance they have is to play the semi-final in T20 format while considering the ODI and Test format it’s hard for them to go past the pool stage. So I have updated him on things on the cricketing front. We had a productive meeting and it is now his call on how to proceed.”

As for Mani, it was always understood that he wasn’t keen to continue, even for a shorter term, but was not against the idea of staying on in order to complete plans and projects that had started under his stewardship. Lead among those would be to take the long-standing negotiations with PSL franchises on a new financial model for the league to a conclusion.