With Islamabad High Court's order limiting the powers of the current PCB chairman Najam Sethi as a mere caretaker, which raised doubts over the legitimacy of the selection committee, the Board faces a tough situation with its national cricket team scheduled to leave for the tour of Zimbabwe in late August.
A senior official of the PCB told PTI that the national team was scheduled to tentatively leave for Zimbabwe on 19th or 20th of August to play two T20, three ODIs and two Test matches but no selection committee exits to select a team.
"Not only has the national team to tour Zimbabwe but the national under-23 squad also has to leave by August 15th to play in the ACC emerging nations tournament in Singapore," the official said.
"At the moment we don't have a selection committee as per the orders of the Islamabad High Court, which has restrained the caretaker Chairman, Najam Sethi from exercising his powers and have declared all his decisions since taking charge in late June as null and void," the official explained.
Interestingly Sethi who was appointed by the government as PCB Chairman had accepted the resignation of Iqbal Qasim as chief selector and named former Test captain Moin Khan in his place.
"The main problem for us now is that the term of the old selection committee headed by Qasim has also expired today, so at all costs we have to appoint a new selection committee," the official said.
The Islamabad High Court while hearing a constitutional writ petition in its advanced judgment passed several orders. One of those said that a new Chairman be elected in 90 days time and secondly, the new selection committee should include a regional association official, a journalist, a cricket commentator and a cricket fan.
"The directives by the court as far as the selection committee are not practical to be honest, so the board is in a fix what to do now," a source in PCB said.
