The appointment of Ch Zaka Ashraf as new Chairman of the PCB is yet anotherdisplay of nepotism and cronyism by the present government. Anyone who is close toPresident Asif Ali Zardari or is his staunch supporter stands a chance for the key posts in various major organisations which fall vacant No doubt it is an administrative post and any administrator of good repute should be able to manage the cricket affairs of Pakistan;but the personbeing appointedmust have a strong sports background especially in cricket i.e should have played cricket at national level plus he should have a clean track record in his previous appointments. The sports lovers especially cricket fans would like to know the antecedents of the new Chairman of PCB. His only qualification is that he is a close friend of the President, the appointing authority and the patron-in-chief of PCB. He is following in the footsteps of his predecessor Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf who also appointed the chairmen of PCB who were his personal friends and they all mishandled the cricket affairs. The criteria for the post of the PCB chairman must be laid down in its constitution and the post advertised.A neutral Board of Governors should, after short-listing the names,appointa chairman through election by a secret ballot. Unless we have merit in the appointment of chairman of the PCB, we cannot havecorrect selection of the national cricket team. We have seen enough disgrace in the recent spot fixing case where our three top players were given jail sentence besides ICC ban on their playing cricketfrom 5 to 10 years. MUHAMMAD AZHAR KHWAJA, Lahore, November 9.