What's new

Former PCB Chairman Shaharyar Khan passes away [Tribute in post#18]

B

BouncerGuy

Super Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Aug 29, 2023
Runs
10,880
PCB saddened over the demise of former Chairman Shaharyar Khan

Lahore, 23 March 2024:

The Pakistan Cricket Board, through its Chairman, the Board of Governors and employees, expresses deep sadness and sorrow over the passing away of former Chairman PCB Shaharyar Khan earlier this morning, in Lahore. He was 89.
He served as the Chairman of PCB for two different terms, from December 2003 to October 2006 and from August 2014 to August 2017.

Shaharyar Khan also worked as team manager of the Pakistan National Men’s team during the 1999 tour of India and the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003.

The PCB pays heartfelt condolences to Shaharyar Khan's family on his sad demise and wishes to always remember him as one of the vital characters in bringing cricket back to Pakistan during the last decade.

Chairman PCB Mohsin Naqvi: “On behalf of the PCB, I express my deep condolences and grief over the passing of former Chairman Shaharyar Khan. He was a fine administrator and served Pakistan Cricket with utmost dedication.

“Pakistan Cricket will stay indebted to the late Shaharyar Khan for his commendable role as head of the board and for his services in the growth and development of the game in the country.”

PCB​
 
Last edited:
Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Illahi Rajiyoon

What a great personality!

This caliber of a person will not be seen again.
 
Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Illahi Rajioon

My father worked in foreign office, he spoke highly of him as a person. What a career and life he had.
 
May Allah help his family in these thought times.

Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Illahi Rajioon

That said, the man was a real softie as PCB chairman, he was very docile during the oval ball tampering saga in 2006 and the then Pakistani government replaced him as a result.
 
إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعون

I had the pleasure of meeting him during his tenure ‎especially after the Oval test back in 2006 and briefly had some chats.

Even during his other trips after that to the UK, had seen and met him while he was undergoing medical treatment.

He was surely one of the most nicest people I had met in the cricket fraternity and one of the best administrators Pakistan cricket had in it's history.
 
My thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time. May he rest in peace
 
Inna lillahi wa inna lillahi rajiun

A well respected bureaucrate of Pakistan
 
Inna lillahi wainna alaihi rajioon.
He was a nice and sincere guy who tried his best to take PCB forward. One of the better heads we've had at PCB.
 
In an exquisitely penned tribute to the former PCB Chairman, the Late Shaharyar Khan, veteran member @KB describes to us exactly why the former diplomat endeared himself to many generations of Pakistanis and why the void left by his departure will be felt for many years to come.



GJVc1lkXQAA0I3D

​

shahr-yar: “Possessor or lord of the city’; a king, a prince.”
John Platts, A dictionary of Urdu, classical Hindi, and English, 1884

In a world of increasingly entrenched tribalism, there is something refreshing about recalling Shaharyar Khan. An urbane figure, this was a man who brought people together.

Family history was one factor that shaped his cosmopolitan outlook.

Shaharyar Khan was born on 29th March 1934 and was a scion of royalty. His father - Sarwar Ali Khan - was the Nawab of Korwai State. His mother - Abida Sultan - was the heir apparent of the central Indian state of Bhopal until she migrated to Pakistan in 1950.

It is a remarkable fact that from the years 1819 to 1926, Bhopal was ruled for most of the years by Begums. It was a fact that clearly Shaharyar and his mother were deeply proud of. Abida Sultan began her piece for the magazine, History Today, in 1980 with the words:

“At a time when the revival of orthodox Islam and the status and role of Muslim women in modern society is capturing the attention of the world, the story of the Begums of Bhopal, and how during the last 200 years they overcame the prejudices, religious dogma and chauvinism of the period to play such a decisive and positive role in an otherwise male-dominated society, provides thought-provoking reading for the historian and sociologist.”

Shaharyar would himself go on to write a book on the topic: The Begums of Bhopal: A Dynasty of Women Rulers in Raj India. To his credit the book went beyond familial pieties.

The education he received and the places it took him, was another factor in moulding his cosmopolitanism. In 1945, he enrolled as a boarding student at the Royal Indian Military College in Dehradun. Of the period he states that: “You learned to live with people from Bengal, Madras and Punjab and know their customs and ways of life. The Sikh boys in our dormitory, had to get up half an hour earlier than the rest of us, in order to shampoo and wash their hair and tie it all up. We would observe all the Hindu and Sikh festivals at the gurudwara and the temple just as they would observe Ramzan, Eid and Eid-ul-Azha with us. In short, different cultures were living with each other.”

In 1948, he went to England to study and “learnt a lot on how different cultures performed as a result of the effects of post-World War crises which drove them to conserve and give up on pleasures. My great bridge to culture was spanned ultimately through sports. I was a good sportsman. In my first year at school at the age of 14 years, I was selected to play cricket for the school and became a hero.”

Shaharyar Khan joined the Foreign Service in 1957 and would remain with them until 1994, reaching the level of the most senior civil servant in the Foreign Ministry. He served as Pakistan’s high commissioner to the UK, a country that became a second home to him. Needless to say that a career as a diplomat required a high level of emotional intelligence and ability to build strong ties.

It was his cosmopolitanism, his skills of diplomacy and his connections that proved very useful when he came to serve as Chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board between 2003 and 2006. (He was also team manager on the tour to India in 1999).

Appointed by General Musharraf, his son - Ali Khan - quotes his father as saying, in relation to his appointment:

“I knew Musharraf cursorily when we visited Jordan when I was Ambassador there in the 1970s…He was also keen on engaging with India and I felt my appointment -as a civilian - was partly as a means of assuaging public criticism of the army taking so many key administrative positions and part out of his seeing me as a conduit for improving relations with India. I had been appointed previously as manager for the 1999 tour that Pakistan made to India, which was a a cricket and foreign relations success, at what at the time had been a tense India-Pakistan relationship. Like Zia, Musharraf was keen on cricket diplomacy.”

His tenure witnessed successful tours by India in 2004 and England in 2005 - both tours generating an enormous amount of goodwill. His family connections in India (his mother’s two younger sisters remained in India after partition with one marrying the Nawab of Pataudi) and the excellent rapport he had with Jagmohan Dalmiya helped in making the 2004 tour by India a success. It was also under Shaharyar Khan that the central contracts system was introduced. Although his tenure ended unhappily with the ball tampering controversy that marred the Oval Test of 2006, his period is generally remembered as one that brought stability to the game in Pakistan.

He returned as Chairman in 2014, serving until 2017. In this period, Zimbabwe became the first country to visit Pakistan following the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan team and the Pakistan Super League was inaugurated. Yet, his stamp was perhaps less visible in this period. He was overshadowed by Najam Sethi. And although he tried hard to foster closer relations with the Indian cricket board, the times had changed. His diplomatic skills and connections were no longer a match for the financial muscle of the Indian cricket board. For a man who had long argued that cricket could act as a “bridge of peace,” it was a sad denouement.

Whatever his family background, Shaharyar Khan was not a prince. He was something better: a man of integrity and decency, who believed in building bridges and not walls.
 
MenInG said:
In an exquisitely penned tribute to the former PCB Chairman, the Late Shaharyar Khan, veteran member @KB describes to us exactly why the former diplomat endeared himself to many generations of Pakistanis and why the void left by his departure will be felt for many years to come.



GJVc1lkXQAA0I3D

​

shahr-yar: “Possessor or lord of the city’; a king, a prince.”
John Platts, A dictionary of Urdu, classical Hindi, and English, 1884

In a world of increasingly entrenched tribalism, there is something refreshing about recalling Shaharyar Khan. An urbane figure, this was a man who brought people together.

Family history was one factor that shaped his cosmopolitan outlook.

Shaharyar Khan was born on 29th March 1934 and was a scion of royalty. His father - Sarwar Ali Khan - was the Nawab of Korwai State. His mother - Abida Sultan - was the heir apparent of the central Indian state of Bhopal until she migrated to Pakistan in 1950.

It is a remarkable fact that from the years 1819 to 1926, Bhopal was ruled for most of the years by Begums. It was a fact that clearly Shaharyar and his mother were deeply proud of. Abida Sultan began her piece for the magazine, History Today, in 1980 with the words:

“At a time when the revival of orthodox Islam and the status and role of Muslim women in modern society is capturing the attention of the world, the story of the Begums of Bhopal, and how during the last 200 years they overcame the prejudices, religious dogma and chauvinism of the period to play such a decisive and positive role in an otherwise male-dominated society, provides thought-provoking reading for the historian and sociologist.”

Shaharyar would himself go on to write a book on the topic: The Begums of Bhopal: A Dynasty of Women Rulers in Raj India. To his credit the book went beyond familial pieties.

The education he received and the places it took him, was another factor in moulding his cosmopolitanism. In 1945, he enrolled as a boarding student at the Royal Indian Military College in Dehradun. Of the period he states that: “You learned to live with people from Bengal, Madras and Punjab and know their customs and ways of life. The Sikh boys in our dormitory, had to get up half an hour earlier than the rest of us, in order to shampoo and wash their hair and tie it all up. We would observe all the Hindu and Sikh festivals at the gurudwara and the temple just as they would observe Ramzan, Eid and Eid-ul-Azha with us. In short, different cultures were living with each other.”

In 1948, he went to England to study and “learnt a lot on how different cultures performed as a result of the effects of post-World War crises which drove them to conserve and give up on pleasures. My great bridge to culture was spanned ultimately through sports. I was a good sportsman. In my first year at school at the age of 14 years, I was selected to play cricket for the school and became a hero.”

Shaharyar Khan joined the Foreign Service in 1957 and would remain with them until 1994, reaching the level of the most senior civil servant in the Foreign Ministry. He served as Pakistan’s high commissioner to the UK, a country that became a second home to him. Needless to say that a career as a diplomat required a high level of emotional intelligence and ability to build strong ties.

It was his cosmopolitanism, his skills of diplomacy and his connections that proved very useful when he came to serve as Chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board between 2003 and 2006. (He was also team manager on the tour to India in 1999).

Appointed by General Musharraf, his son - Ali Khan - quotes his father as saying, in relation to his appointment:

“I knew Musharraf cursorily when we visited Jordan when I was Ambassador there in the 1970s…He was also keen on engaging with India and I felt my appointment -as a civilian - was partly as a means of assuaging public criticism of the army taking so many key administrative positions and part out of his seeing me as a conduit for improving relations with India. I had been appointed previously as manager for the 1999 tour that Pakistan made to India, which was a a cricket and foreign relations success, at what at the time had been a tense India-Pakistan relationship. Like Zia, Musharraf was keen on cricket diplomacy.”

His tenure witnessed successful tours by India in 2004 and England in 2005 - both tours generating an enormous amount of goodwill. His family connections in India (his mother’s two younger sisters remained in India after partition with one marrying the Nawab of Pataudi) and the excellent rapport he had with Jagmohan Dalmiya helped in making the 2004 tour by India a success. It was also under Shaharyar Khan that the central contracts system was introduced. Although his tenure ended unhappily with the ball tampering controversy that marred the Oval Test of 2006, his period is generally remembered as one that brought stability to the game in Pakistan.

He returned as Chairman in 2014, serving until 2017. In this period, Zimbabwe became the first country to visit Pakistan following the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan team and the Pakistan Super League was inaugurated. Yet, his stamp was perhaps less visible in this period. He was overshadowed by Najam Sethi. And although he tried hard to foster closer relations with the Indian cricket board, the times had changed. His diplomatic skills and connections were no longer a match for the financial muscle of the Indian cricket board. For a man who had long argued that cricket could act as a “bridge of peace,” it was a sad denouement.

Whatever his family background, Shaharyar Khan was not a prince. He was something better: a man of integrity and decency, who believed in building bridges and not walls.
Click to expand...

Beautiful words @KB, for a guy who I will call the "DON BRADMAN of Chairmans" who worked for PCB. He was more professional than anybody else who held the chairmanship of PCB.
 
Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ilaihi Raji’un.

One of the few people at a government level position in Pakistan who carried and conducted himself like a true professional unlike the many many dehati ill mannered buffoons who run the country today.
 
ICC pays tribute to Shaharyar Khan

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has expressed its sorrow at the passing of former Pakistan cricket chief Shaharyar Khan at the age of 89.

Shaharyar was a career diplomat who served as the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chair from 2003 to 2006 and again from 2014 to 2017, also representing the PCB on the ICC Board.

In a statement, ICC Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said: “This is sad news for the cricket world. Shaharyar was a very prominent and important figure who contributed hugely to the development of the game over many years.

“His experience as a diplomat helped him lead cricket administration very skillfully in Pakistan and he was also a respected member of the ICC Board. On behalf of the ICC, I would like to offer our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends as well as to our colleagues at the PCB.”
 
The news that Nawabzada Shahryar Mohammad Khan has passed away, aged 89, in Lahore reminded me that he was a diplomat of immense charm who wanted to use cricket to bring Pakistan and India closer. On a sunny August day in 2013, we sat in a garden in north London, chatting about his book, Cricket Cauldron: The Turbulent Politics of Sport in Pakistan. He had come from Delhi where he had met Manmohan Singh and other Indian leaders as Nawaz Sharif’s special envoy to India. We talked about his cousin, the erstwhile Nawab of Pataudi and how Khan had rushed over to see Tiger after the latter damaged his right eye in a car crash in 1961. Khan was then serving as the third secretary at the Pakistani High Commission in London.

I am sorry to say that I inadvertently got him into a bit of trouble after I had invited him to lunch with the Indian Journalists’ Association. I cannot quite remember how the subject of Dawood Ibrahim came up, but Khan’s reply seemed to suggest that the gangster wanted by India was living in Pakistan but the Pakistani government would ensure he moved on. When all hell broke loose with a denial from the Pakistani government of Dawood ever being given sanctuary in Pakistan, Khan claimed he had been misquoted by Indian journalists. I did not let on that he was on tape.

“I believe that cricket would act as a bridge of peace between Pakistan and India,” Khan had said, adding that “despite the political tension and arch rivalry, Indian and Pakistani players get on famously at a personal level.” He also had a little suggestion to improve relations: “You have your IPL. It would be good if two or three of the obviously good Pakistani players are allowed to play in the IPL.”

SOURCE: https://www.telegraphindia.com/opin...o-bring-india-and-pakistan-closer/cid/2012987
 
His book Cricket Cauldron is worth a read if anyone hasn't had the chance.

His passing hits especially hard given the circus that's the incumbent PCB administration. He wasn't like certain PCB heads determined to steal the limelight and take credit where none was due. He appointed good people and let them get on with it.

He was a public servant in every sense of the phrase - a rare Pakistani official of genuine decency and integrity who brought much needed stability in his two tenures as Chairman. It's no coincidence Pakistan enjoyed significant on-field success during his stints.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

FearlessRoar
Former Test Captain Saeed Ahmed passes away
Replies
14
Views
264
Suleiman
Suleiman
MenInG
Former PCB Chairman Ijaz Butt passes away at age 85
Replies
17
Views
1K
Officer Barbrady
O
B
[Report] PCB in touch with Justin Langer, Gary Kirsten among others for Pakistan Head Coach role
2
Replies
149
Views
4K
JattMaula
JattMaula
The Bald Eagle
  • Poll
Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi elected unanimously and unopposed as the PCB's 37th Chairman
2 3
Replies
198
Views
5K
Bewal Express
B
FearlessRoar
  • Poll
Zaka Ashraf steps down as PCB Management Committee chairman
2 3
Replies
178
Views
4K
Asad T
Asad T
Back
Top