Iqbal Qasim named head of new Pak selection committee

Former Test spinner Iqbal Qasim was on Monday named chief of Pakistan's new seven-member national selection committee, which will pick both the senior and junior teams.

Former Test spinner Iqbal Qasim was on Monday named chief of Pakistan's new seven-member national selection committee, which will pick both the senior and junior teams.

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In a departure from the practice of appointing 3-4 members on the panel, the Pakistan Cricket Board named seven
members, two of them co-opted from the smaller provinces of Baluchistan NWFP.

The committee headed by Qasim includes Saleem Jaffer, Ijaz Ahmed, Azhar Khan, Mohammad Illyas and co-opted members Asif Baloch and Farrukh Zaman. Jaffer and Illyas were part of the previous selection committee headed by former leg-spinner Abdul Qadir.

Interestingly, PCB did not clarify whether the selection committee would be a paid one or not. "Probably they would be paid selectors," a senior PCB official said.

The board last month had sacked both the senior and junior selection committees.

Meanwhile, Qadir will appear before the National Assembly Standing Committee on Sports in Islamabad to explain
reasons for his resignation last month.

Qadir had alleged that there was politics in the board and the selectors were not allowed to work independently.