The Pakistan Cricket Board haspicked a 10-member delegation of former players, who will act as goodwillambassadors in India during the much-anticipated bilateral series next month,but questions are being raised about the choices made by the PCB.
The Board's Executive CoordinationCommittee has decided to invite the legends to witness the matches betweenIndia and Pakistan in December and to help foster better relations between thetwo countries.
The committee noted that these cricketershave rendered valuable services for Pakistan cricket and are asset for not onlyPCB but for the country as a whole.
"These players will be goodwillambassadors for Pakistan Cricket and can help in improving the cricketingrelations between two countries," a PCB statement said.
But interestingly some leading names aremissing from the list namely former captains Asif Iqbal, Inzamam-ul-Haq, WasimAkram, Waqar Younis, Rashid Latif, Moin Khan and even Javed Miandad.
A PCB spokesman explained the list wasprepared in chronological order in terms of debuts made by the playersselected.
"The selected players are those whomade their debuts in 50, 60s and 70s and we will consider the others in futureevents as well," the spokesman said.
The selected players include HanifMohammad, Imtiaz Ahmed, Majid Khan, Zaheer Abbas, Mushtaq Mohammad, Imran Khan,Javed Burki, Wasim Bari, Intikhab Alam and Sadiq Mohammad.
But critics in the cricket community havequestioned the criteria on the basis of which the players were picked.
"Certainly by no stretch ofimagination can you describe Burki, Intikhab or Sadiq as legends of Pakistancricket," one former player said.
Another player questioned the need to pickplayers in chronological order.
"It is a positive move by the PCB butthe best thing would have been to send two players from one particular era to avenue that way the legends we produced in the 80s and 90s would not have beenignored," he said.