Naseem Ashraf

Dr. Naseem Ashraf (نسيم أشرف) is the current chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, or PCB. He succeeded Shaharyar Khan as the head of the board's ad-hoc committee, following Khan's resignation in the aftermath of the August 2006 Oval Test Controversy. Prior to his appointment as the chairman of the ad-hoc committee he had been serving as a member of the committee for three years. Dr. Ashraf is a medical physician by professional training, who previously served as an adviser on human development to the President Pervez Musharraf, who is also the board's Patron-in-Chief. In addition he also served as the Chairman of the National Commission for Human Development (NHCD), the National Human Development Fund (NHDF), and was also a Minister of State.

Career as a public health and human development official
Prior to his association with the NHCD and the NHDF, Dr. Ashraf served as the Team Leader for the President's Task Force on Human Development. He was also a community activist and a member of the Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America since 1978. His main achievement in this sphere was the designing and implementation of the Apna Sehat Village Improvement Program, a model of primary health care designed to reduce disease and lower death rates in developing countries, which has been carrying out health awareness programs in rural Pakistan since 1989. In 1997 Dr. Ashraf co-founded the Human Development Foundation of North America (HDFNA), an organization dedicated to the empowerment of people at the grass roots level in America as well as Pakistan. He has also served as Chairman of the Oregon Medical Association Public Health Education Committee and President of Douglas County Medical Society.

Career as a cricket player and administrator
Ashraf had a very brief first-class cricket career, spanning just 3 matches for the Peshawar Cricket Association in the 1969-70 Quaid-e-Azam Cricket Trophy where as a middle-order batsman he yielded just 50 runs, with a best of 21 and a duck on debut. His limited cricket playing experience does not go down well with many of his critics in the media, as well as the cricket following public in Pakistan who allege that his close affiliation with the President Pervez Musharraf played a very big part in his appointment at the country's top cricket-administrative position. Though he promised to deliver, widespread allegations of nepotism and mismanagement at all levels persist and his brief time in charge has been spilled with controversy.

Younis Khan captaincy saga
Barely hours after he got the job he sacked the assistant coach Mushtaq Ahmed and stand-in captain Mohammad Yousuf and re-instated Younis Khan as stand-in captain for the ICC Champions Trophy 2006 in India, when the regular captain Inzamam-ul-Haq was serving a four match ban for bringing the game into disrepute. Younis had him self stepped down from the vice-captaincy a day earlier stating that he did not want to be a "dummy captain". Ashraf was criticised by some for not punishing Younis's alleged 'irresponsibility', 'ill-judgment' and 'dumbness' adequately and by others, including Imran Khan, for the general "shabby" manner in which they had handled this entire issue.

The religion controversy
While the team was still in India playing, Ashraf stepped in hot water again over a remark he made on a television interview about the team's growing religious activities, asking the players to keep their religion private. Such criticism directed towards the team for their so-called 'overt display of religiosity' was not new, but many people deemed it inappropriate for Ashraf to have touched a sensitive issue in the manner and time that he did. Sohaib Alvi, a noted writer, was moved to suggest in Dawn that the team's "de-Islamisation" was the chairman's hidden agenda, and suggestions that President Pervez Musharraf had a hand in it were equally widespread in the media.

As the debate over the role of Islam in the Pakistan team gathered more steam in subsequent days, Ashraf's comments also attracted criticism from MMA (Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal), a political conglomerate of religious parties who sit in government in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan. In a statement, religious leaders strongly condemned the chairman's remarks as "damaging to the cricket team and the country's ideology". Inzamam-ul-Haq also strongly denied accusations that he was putting players in the team under pressure to pray and that the selection process was linked to religion in any way.

Doping scandal
Naseem Ashraf is also widely accused of mis-handling the Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif doping scandal. Both players had tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid Nandrolone during a routine internal PCB drug's test, and were initially banned for 2 and 1 years respectively from all forms of cricket, but after the players pleaded innocence and appealed, their bans were subsequently acquitted by an appellate tribunal. The acquittal drew widespread condemnation from International Cricket Council (ICC), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the media alike.

Questions were also asked with respect to the PCB's involvement in the investigative and appealing procedures; a letter published in The Nation newspaper written by Naseem Ashraf to Dr. Shahid Hamid, a member of the first tribunal, was used to allege that the PCB had tried to influence the decesion making process of the tribunal, but Ashraf defended the board in these circumstances re-iterating that both committees' decesions, the first tribunal's ban verdicts as well as the acquittals by the 2nd appellate tribunal, were independent of the board and they should be respected as the same.

Both players eventually returned to represent Pakistan under controversial circumstances in the 2007 tour to South Africa, but as the World Cup neared both were deemed "physically unfit" in rather mysterious circumstances, that led the international media terming the move as a "cover-up" to protect the players from further bans in the ICC-governed event where they could have been target tested again, given Nandrolone samples may exist in a person's blood stream for up to six months. The PCB however dismissed these allegations by re-iterating it had a "zero-tolerance" policy towards doping, and that the players were genuinely unfit and there was no cover up. The criticism did not however stop and the PCB's repeated self-defense was termed "hypocritical", eventually they were asked by the ICC to submit medical evidence for the players said 'injuries' before being given clearance to call squad replacements for the World Cup.

SA tour problems
Ashraf was also widely held responsible for Waqar Younis's removal from his position of bowling coach prior to the tour to South Africa, following a move by the board to stop him from accompanying the team during its one-day leg of the tour. Waqar retaliated by demanding to be appointed for the full tour and offered to resign if he wasn't retained for the whole series, to which Ashraf readily accepted his resignation. His absence in turn was felt as the Pakistan team lost both the test and one-day series on that tour. Waqar later criticised the PCB for treating him 'unfairly' and he had the popular support of the media and the fans, but Ashraf hit back at these claims by calling his remarks "unprofessional". In the same tour, Ashraf was also criticsed by some sections of the Pakistani press for "currying favours among journalists by sending them, at the board's expense, to the tour in South Africa".

Nepotism and other miscellaneous allegations and criticisms
Similar allegations of "attempting to hog the limelight" were hurled at him again when he accompanied the team at the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies, where he arrived in Montego Bay in an Air Jamaica flight clad in an official blazer made especially for the members of the Pakistan team and made it a point to feature in every official photograph with the team. However, soon after Pakistan's exit and the death of coach Bob Woolmer, Ashraf flew back to Pakistan to take part in a pre-scheduled "tour to interior Sindh" leaving the players to face the Jamaica police's questioning in connection with Woolmer's murder inquiry all on their own without any proper legal representation. Once Pakistan returned from the West Indies, several players including Inzamam criticised the PCB for its 'lack of support'.

Failure to restore constitution
Though Ashraf and his management have repeatedly promised that ad-hocism will be abolished and the impending PCB constitution restored,  like his predecessor, Ashraf's promises have served as all but lip service and the constitution to date remains no where to be seen.

Submission and rejection of resignation
In March 2007, barely five month into his job after he took over from Shaharyar Khan who stood down in October, Ashraf tendered his own resignation, accepting responsibility for the Pakistan team's first round exit from the 2007 Cricket World Cup in the West Indies at the hands of young Irish Cricket Team. But his resignation was subsequently rejected by President Pervez Musharraf who was asked him to "continue his duty to rebuild the Pakistan cricket team on modern and professional lines".