Najam Sethi has pulled himself out of the race to become the next chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). He was heading PCB’s interim management committee since last December.

While Sethi’s tenure was due to end on Wednesday (June 21), he was expected to continue at the position on a long-term basis.

In Pakistan, the Prime Minister is patron of the cricket board and directly appoints the chairman of the PCB.

The Pakistan Peoples Party, headed by Asif Ali Zardari, is current PM Shehbaz Sharif’s alliance partner in the government and recently demanded that its candidate should get the new PCB chairman post.

Former PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf is considered as front-runner to replace Sethi, however, nothing has been official yet.

Taking to Twitter, Najam Sethi wrote: “I don’t want to be a bone of contention between Asif Zardari and Shehbaz Sharif. Such instability and uncertainty is not good for PCB. Under the circumstances I am not a candidate for Chairmanship of PCB. Good luck to all stakeholders.”

Sethi replaced Ramiz Raja as PCB chief last December. After taking charge, he reinstated the sport’s domestic structure under the 2014 constitution after scrapping the 2019 board’s constitution.

Sethi also took some key decisions that included the appointment of Mickey Arthur as director of cricket and Grant Bradburn as head coach.

After BCCI refused to send its team to Pakistan for the Asia Cup 2023, Sethi pushed for the hybrid model to host the continental tournament, which was eventually accepted by the Asian Cricket Council. As a result, Pakistan will now be able to stage four Asia Cup games while the rest of the matches will be played in Sri Lanka.