ISLAMABAD, Aug 4 (APP): The Senate Standing Committee on Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) on Thursday gave a go ahead signal to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for setting up a television channel and radio station for promotion of the game.
The committee which met here at the Parliament House with Mushahid Ullah Khan in the chair reviewed the working of PCB, Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) and National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA).
Besides other the meeting was attended by IPC Minister Mian Riaz Husain Pirzada, Senator Sardar Muhammad Azam Khan, Mudassar Nazar (PCB Director Academies), Shakil Sheikh (PCB governeing board member) and top officials of PCB and PHF.
PCB Executive Committee Chairman Najam Sethi informed the committee that board needed to establish its own television channel and radio station for the betterment of sports activities.
Upon this Mushahid Ullah Khan said that it would be great initiative and the board should work on it. Other members of the committee were also of the view that the channel and station would help promote cricket.
Sethi informed the committee that PCB was criticized when Pakistan performed poorly in the Asia Cup and the World Twenty20.”We need time to improve in the T20 rankings,” he said.
He said after the infamous Sri Lanka team incident in 2009 international teams stopped touring Pakistan which has hurt the game badly.
“This is the reason we established our own league (Pakistan Super League) and its first edition went very successful,” he said. He said the final of the second edition of PSL would be held in Lahore and the Chief Minister of Punjab had assured of all-out support in this regard.
“We have also intimated the foreign players about this,” he said.
Sethi said we have been trying to rope in an international curator who can come here for a year or so and train our curators so that we can make top class pitches here to develop our players. Chairman asked the PCB to form a think tank committee.
“There are many companies who have plentiful of money and love to support cricket. We can take their help in this regard and make them a member of the think tank committee,” he said. Secretary IPC, Raja Muhammad Nadir Ali also informed the committee about the working of the ministry.
PHF Secretary Shahbaz Ahmed Sr. briefed the committee about the developing steps taken for the revival of the national game.
“We have done all arrangements to hold Pakistan’s first Professional Hockey League involving foreign players,” he said adding “now we just need the permission of the Punjab Government”. Shahbaz said PHF also needed to establish a television channel for the promotion and encouragement of the national game.
The IPC minister said that a MoU would be signed between PCB and PHF to telecast PHF matches and programmes.
