How disgusting it is that Pakistans cricket has not advanced a step since Mr. Ijaz Butt took over the reins of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), the reason being his flair for conflicts and controversies. Rather than promoting the game and raising its standards to match other teams of the world he chose to turn himself into a dictator and rule the game un-challenged. In the process he concentrated on patronizing cronyism, likes and dislikes, sacking officials who disapproved his acts and deeds and forming a regime which functioned in accordance with his whims and fancies. Although his policies came under a storm of criticism both from the media as well as the cricket fraternity he continued to maintain his ruling style under the protection of the countrys top brass. Had the PCB worked on character building of the players and taught them the vital norms and ethics of the game, the embarrassment caused by the trio of Salman Butt, Muhammad Asif and Muhammad Aamir could perhaps be averted. The sordid episode was projected to such proportions that the International Cricket Council (ICC) got the golden opportunity of rendering the PCB subservient to the extent of even selecting the national teams with the world bodys approval. The list of controversies is pretty long but we will discuss the latest one. It is the undesirable issue of captaincy for the World Cup 2011. Out of all the countries participating in the mega event Pakistan was the only one having announced the team without naming the captain. It is not too far back that the PCB appointed Misbah-ul Haq as captain of the Test team and Shahid Afridi as captain of the teams for One Day Internationals (ODIs) and Twenty20 matches. Now when the Pakistan team is in the midst of New Zealands tour and the World Cup staring in the face, Ijaz Butt has suddenly lost faith in Shahid Afridi and created the captaincy crisis for the World Cup. As Chairman of the PCB he did not realize that putting two senior players Shahid Afridi and Misbah-ul Haq against each other was in awfully bad taste and that the change of captaincy at this stage could cause disunity in the team as well as lower the morale and fighting spirit of the players. The self created controversy, however, gave a golden chance to Ijaz Butt to undertake an unscheduled tour of New Zealand on the pretext of consulting senior players and team management on the vital issue. Thank God Shahid Afridis prolific act of defeating the Kiwis in the third ODI and full support of his team mates on the captaincy issue has convinced Ijaz Butt not to make the change. RAFI NASIM, Lahore, February 1.