Dr. Ashraf = not such a bad guy after all?

You know after hearing his insight on the game and his ideas in the commentary box, I must say he is not a bad guy. He is honest and very smart when he speaks.

He was discussing the SA tour and how right now a short term plan is to bowl from 19 yards in practice. However, in the long term we must develop pitches for all types.

The man speaks very elequantly too. I wish he was a commentator. He represents Pakistan so well, and comes off brilliantly smart.

He is also no just idiot and agrees with everything Sanjay or the otehr commentator is saying. He has his own insight in the game and I wish he was our PR manager or commentator.

OVerall, I do not think he is a bad guy after all. I do not agree with his stance on hiding religion, but that is his own opinion and our players are clearly not listening to it However, the man represents Pakistan well and I made the mistake of judging a book by its cover.

Well done to you Docta!

Now he is defending Bob Woolmer! This man thinks like me almost! Man, this guy is awesome!

Agreed.... Nasim Ashraf for commentator... please...

He is making the most of his stay... I loved the way he is finding every opportunity to compliment our players and coach woolmer... sooo unlike ramiz

Very well spoken and talking sense in the commentary box.

He' s got a good understanding of the game and has some clear objectives in mind. If I've heard him correctly, he's actually got some long term plans for Pakistani cricket.

Very impressive.

Agreed, he sounds like sensible person that knows what he's doing.

Looks like Dr. Ashraf is the winner of this match

I haven't heard him. but ppl involved in cricket says, he is good man. But in his early days, he faced alot of problems from ppl within PCB and it may have effected some of his decisions as well

Some call him the Mohammad Yousaf of commentary

Well, we do have the likes of Haroon Rasheed in the commentary box, what can I say .

So he strings together 3 sentences and throws in a Amreekan accent and he is decent ? He made what we call in management "motherhood statements" and he is decent ?

The drugs fiasco that he has presided over will need a little more than "eloquence" to fix. The jury is still out.

LOL GUY WAS MY NEIGHBOR IN PAK

JAB KI US KEY GHAR MEIN CRIKET KI BALL CHALE JATI THI HE USE 2 NEVER GIVE IT 2 US SO ONCE CHUREY KI BUNDOOQ SEH US KI KHIRKI TOR DI AND US KEY CHOKIDAAR KO EGGS SEH DHOO DIYA US KEY BAAD DENA SHRO KER DIYA,B/W IHATED HIM

His objectives are great but then again all heads of PCB have had great objectives on paper but we have failed to see the objectives getting executed as yet.

a few words on air and all of a sudden hes a great guy? with a great personality? LOL. im not saying that hes not, i mean he might be...but heck.....i dont care HOW he talks. its what he DOES.what he will do in the coming years, at the moment the whole drugs fiasco isnt exactly running smoothly.

He communicated his ideas well and I don't think anyone here would disagree with a single thing he said. Sounds like he's on the right track.

What he will do its yet to see. As someone mentioned his job is to praise and say all the good things. This guy was a medical doctor in US for a long time so he knows how to speak. Besides all that seems like he has a decent personality and a mind of his own. Runing PCB is not easy, iits not always what he can do but what he is allowed to do. Lets hope for best. Atleast he is not a career diplomat like Sharyar. I rather have him in place instead of someone like Sharyar. He is well educated and lived his professional life outside pakistan. This will help him think outside the box


xbox

I heard him speak and i'll say this, for the head of the PCB he makes a damn good diplomat!!

Yeah only Pakistan cricket can have a neurologist as their chairman, nuff said.

Think he is a nephrologist (??) ...

Regardless - going back to some of his remarks - when he was asked about Paks state of fielding, he replied that it was a concern - and then as I thought to myself he is about to make some statement about how we intend to work on this aspect - he said :

"We have created a best fielder award for this series and its already having an effect - ie players are working hard at their fielding"

Now pls tell me, how is creating an award for best fielder improve the fielding in this side ? Would you not get a fielding coach or provide details of some plan etc to improve this aspect ? So are Pakistani players not able to catch balls, effect run outs because no one had an award for that before ?

Laughable.

This is what people living in Pak get angry at with non Pakistani residents ! We hear someone speaking in good English and we declare this person best for Pakistan - without worrying about what they are actually doing or saying !

Let the good Doctor prove his "cricket" credentials and set some concrete policies and follow them with concrete actions - until then, he remains just an eloquent speaker and nothing more.

It could be argued, that people like your good self did the same thing when Bob took over.

A couple of things -

1. Having a best fielder award can provide some additional incentive for players to work harder at their fielding. A lot of what makes a good fielder good is practice, hard work, and the desire to be a good fielder. Having an award is also a good way to highlight the importance of fielding to aspiring young cricketers. Giving some recognition to fielding efforts is a positive step. His job btw is not to coach fielding. As he said he does not interfere with selection and tactics - that's not his job.

2. It is very condescending to assume that people in general liked what Ashraf had to say solely because of his English skills. I think most people that approved his comments did so because of what he said, not necessarily the way he said it. Being able to express yourself well is only one trait. You could express something very stupid very well, for example, and you wouldn't be respected for it.

Bob was hired as a professional coach - not as a spokesman for this team. The Dr. has been appointed by the president to run PCB - not to improve fielding by creating some kind of backslapping award!

To claim that the Pak fielding has "improved" ( later on Shoaib Malik was to drop a simple catch at long on) because of this award is also a careless remark.

Pak fielding is not bad because we dont have an award in place.

At your workplace, as a professional, you do your job well because thats what you are trained to do - you dont look around for recognition every time you perform the task you have been hired to do.

Players dont play winning innings because they want to win a MoM award either.

Pakistani fielding has problems due to the fact that its not considered a big deal at the domestic level and we have basic technical problems. The chairman of the PCB would be well advised to put in a plan to fix those issues instead of announcing some meaningless award.

If you contextualise it, it boils down to the same thing - he doesn't know much about cricket, bob didn't know much about Pakistan cricket.

They both, at the beginning of their tenures had a lot to learn. You were willing to give bob a go, and not this guy.

I suspect, as it always is, you have a bias against him because he had a disagreement with Inzi.

Or could it be that just like you know another side of Inzi, Miggy might know another side of the Doctor?

Naved Bhai - Bob was hired because he is a professional cricket coach! The Doctor was appointed by the President for god knows what reason and his first action was to make a laughing stock of Pakistan cricket by mishandling Drugs issue - then exonerating the players to make an even a bigger mess.

The comment about Inzi etc is uncalled for.

OK, lets leave aside the fielding award, and the way he spoke for a minute, the rest of what he proposed seemed sensible, and I agreed with him. At the moment, thats good enough from the PCB chairman. Now he needs to make sure he enforces these ideas, and fights hard to contest WADA's judgement on the Shoaib/Asif case.

I do agree with MIG though, that having a fielding award is not a good way of imroving fielding. But as I mentioned before, his aim to improve cricket at the grassroots level in Pakistan was heartening to hear.

Miggy sahb, I don't really have a problem with you being spectical about doctor sahb. However, that is out of character for you as you normally like to give the benefit of doubt!

As for the inzi comment, you yourself have quite clearly admitted your unstinting support for him. It wasn't meant to be an insult. My point simply is - we all have our favourites but it shouldn't cloud your judgement.

Chairman's on the past have also said the right things BUT we failed to see any action - hopefully he means what he says and he will do something about the domestic game in Pakistan.

The thing about this chairman is, he seems to want to do "everything" himself. He wants to decide what the role of religion should be, he wants to decide how the team interacts with each other, heck he even wants to decide how to improve our fielding.

The job of the chairman is to appoint the right people and then back them up. Not to take every chance he can get to get on tv and show off some stupid fielding award.

Its interesting, when people really want to fix a problem, they dont get on tv and talk about it. They fix it and let people give them credit for it. Maybe i'm wrong!

Naved,

I think that MiG's (and others) support of Inzi is primarily down to the sterling perfomance Inzi has given down the years. He's earned it.

If someone new, who you don't know, and who has no previous credentials for the job, comes in and starts creating negative and unfair controversies about a stalwart performer (and one who was at that moment, under the cosh, because he took a selfless stand for his team), then one is bound to become rather annoyed about it. I know I was, and still am.

Mr. Kidney Doc (or whatever his real qualifications are) threw away any initial "benefit of the doubt" he inherited, when he first came on board, by doing the above.

Re: the drug fiasco. I must say much of the blame is a more long term PCB issue, but he did mishandle it.

He has to now earn it back. If he does, then good for him, and good for Pakistan. Ok, so apparently he speaks English well, and would make a better commentator than Inzi.

Err, ok ....

Perhaps he can start by telling the sponsors (their middle managers, their secretaries, and their drivers) to get lost, clear the stage, and just have him (and an assistant) giving out awards. In something approaching a dignified fashion.

That might be a start?

Some good points by Miggy, ISR etc....

Dr. Lotta, only gets benefit of doubt when he does something of substance to erase the memory of the drug fiasco, religious coments, etc...

Even Brig Tauqeer seemed a pretty decent guy on T.V. and so does most of these political appointees...but unfortunately mostly their talk never turns in to reality

Sometimes what people say however well intentioned it may be, reveals their knowledge or lack of it more loudly than if it were trumpeted all day.

For the Chairman of the PCB to say that a fielding award will improve Pakistan's fielding or make any tangible contribution to it whatsoever is breathtakingly naive.

There is a very serious institutional problem with fielding. It stems from lack of soft landing grounds to practice sliding dives for ground fielding, the use of far too hard cheap cricket balls bought from some local supplier which discourage catching for fear of breaking fingers, perhaps the lack of use of UV filter glasses to cut out the glare which hampers sighting in the very bright light conditions normally found in Pakistan, lack of attention to athletic as opposed to cricket specific training and so on. Money needs to be spent and a proper year round training program designed to address these issues. Not a fielding award!!!

It just goes to show that you can teach a man to speak English but that alone doesn't teach him sense.

One man cant do anything alone, he needs the support of many others involved in Pakistani cricket.

Well practical things are happening...



Regional associations to get more revenue

Osman Samiuddin

December 19, 2006

Regional cricket associations in Pakistan will finally be given the financial empowerment they have demanded for so long, as the new PCB administration slowly begins to unveil its vision for domestic cricket.

Nasim Ashraf, chairman PCB, announced at a press conference in Karachi that gate money from international matches would go to the relevant association, marking a distinct shift in policy from his predecessors. "From now, including the last ODI between Pakistan and the West Indies at Karachi, all revenue gate money will go to the region," revealed Ashraf.

The revenue will be divided between the city hosting the match and the rest of the province. "For example, for the last Karachi ODI, 50% of the revenue will go to the Karachi City Cricket Association (KCCA) immediately and the rest will go back to the province of Sindh and other districts like Larkhana and Hyderabad. Overall, 100% will go back to the region to develop the game further," said Ashraf.

Under the regime of Shaharyar Khan, regional associations had become increasingly marginalized. Revenues from international matches were distributed only through the board, the organization of international matches was left solely in the hands of the PCB with no involvement from the associations. Even in the selection of regional teams, for domestic tournaments, one PCB-appointed selector was always involved. It had been argued, with some justification, by the board, that regional associations were so torn by internal politics and even corruption that they were unable to function properly.

But not all policies of the previous administration have been set aside. Ashraf also announced that welfare and pension funds for ex-cricketers, an idea first mooted earlier this year, has now been put into place. "The fund will help out hardship cases and medical emergencies in particular. All Test cricketers who retired before the Kerry Packer era in 1978 and are now sixty-plus years old, will be receiving a monthly pension," said Ashraf.

Under the plan, Test cricketers with over 20 appearances for their country will receive Rs 25,000 a month. Those who represented their country over ten times will receive Rs 20,000 a month while players with fewer than ten appearances will receive Rs 15,000 a month. The same amounts will be available to the families of cricketers who have passed away. The board is also considering setting up a pension scheme for current Test cricketers.

But but but...will these plans include those associations/Individuals etc. who openly display their religious affiliations