TWO sackings in two prime jobs in two days - this is rather rapid, even by Pakistan cricket's standards where such mayhem has been known to happen, indeed many times over. And make no mistake about it, both Shoaib Malik and Javed Miandad have been pushed to quit. That means that it finally sunk in with the power-that-be, in this case chairman PCB Ijaz Butt that both the captain and his appointee in the newly-minted position of director general cricket operations were no good. This may be correct, indeed is correct. But given that Butt has been associated with the ad hoc setup of the Board off and on for the last half a dozen years or so, and thus absolutely current with the goings-on, should have arrived at in the first place. Is it only when disaster strikes, as it did in the form of an out-of-sorts Sri Lanka sorting us out before being put in its place by India on Wednesday, and simmering multi-pronged tension in the PCB board room that the chairman should act? Is Butt's job dousing the fire alone when it has already erupted and is about to engulf the whole works? Does it not include thinking ahead and charting a course that could guide us to success and glory? Despite having promised much, the Butt style of management through trial and error is not much different from his predecessor. And this would not inspire much confidence in those who aspire to see Pakistan cricket bounce back and match its glory days. As for Javed Miandad, this time round he has gone with some measure of grace - publicly saying that he held nothing against the Board, just that the job on offer didn't meet his aspirations. But this is not all. There are many responsible figures in the Board who are not shy of divulging that Miandad - quite true to form that we have been familiar with during the last 32 years - wanted everything and then some. Pay and perks fat enough to be in the vicinity of around Rs two million and every power under the sun, even those eclipsing those of the chairman's. He, again true to form, had indeed pushed for far too much. And when his bluff was called, he had no option but to hand in the papers that he wasn't even in possession of. What Miandad wanted and didn't get is not the whole story, though. Where in corporate world - and Ijaz Butt should be familiar with this, as since his marriage into a seriously large business house has put him in a position of prominence - do you employ people before evaluating what their job assignment would be? What was PCB's hot shot director human resource, none other than Wasim Bari (his qualification: he did a brief stint in a similar position in PIA; he may not have been responsible for everything that brought our pride of a national airline to this sorry state, but his being in the position does narrate a tale) doing when Miandad was put on the PCB roster without such a mundane thing as a mutually accepted job assignment? Then there are other questions. Such as whether Miandad, an undisputed great of not just this country but of the game itself, qualified for the position? Was he even halfway as good with pen and paper as he was with the bat, and creating a vision and a team that could redeem Pakistan cricket, both in its domestic format and in its international competitiveness? Even Miandad's diehard supporters, and this writer is quite unabashedly one, would not be able to say that he fit the bill. To top it off, his man-management skills were rather well documented - the revolts in his numerous stints as captain and at least three turns as coach ending on a discordant note. With this background, can anyone justify hiring Miandad in the first place? Ditto for hanging on with Malik, whose insipidness was such that it made Inzamam look dynamic and which killed the passion and fire that is ever present in an India-Pakistan rubber on our last foray across the border. If continuing with Malik after the new dispensation was in place was a mistake of serious proportion, Younis Khan's appointment fills one with dire apprehension. To quote, Ramiz Raja the man has shown scant respect for the pride of leading his country. That when he was willingly being groomed for it under Inzi. Younis by nature is moody and mercurial and unless he has changed his spots - which is not usual with leopards of his kind - Pakistan cricket maybe in for some more interesting times.