LAHORE, June 4: A marathon session of the Pakistan Cricket Board's advisory council meeting on Friday failed to give any guideline to the board for the improvement of the game in the country.

The meeting, held at the PCB headquarters from 9:30pm to 5pm, was presided by the PCB Chairman, Shaharyar M. Khan, and attended by all members - Lt Gen Arif Hasan, Ali Raza, Moin Afzal, Shamim Khan and former Test captain Hanif Mohammad.

However, they failed to take a final decision about the next domestic season, the future of department teams, sacking of the team management responsible for the debacle in the recent home series against India or any concrete steps to strengthen the Pakistan team for future competitions.

The advisory council could only approve the readymade LUMS's report on the reorganization of the board's structure. Briefing the press, Shaharyar said that the domestic season was discussed and final decision would be taken in the next meeting in the last week of June in Karachi.

The Quaid-i-Azam Trophy will be held in October, but it was yet to be decided how many regions would take part in it. Shaharyar said the PCB would try to get sponsors for each region to make the domestic season attractive for players.

The PCB would also host 20-a-side-tournament in the domestic season during the month of Ramzan for which various TV channels were interested in telecast. He said that teams of departments would play in the domestic cricket but the board would decide how much role they would be given.

The board is facing opposition from the departments for considering the proposal to minimize their role to one-day tournaments only. He repeated the same reasons for Pakistan's defeat in the home series against India.

"Now we have decided that the coach, captain and selectioncommittee will make a joint strategy for the series," he said without mentioning who would be the authority to chair such kind of meetings.

He said that every player would show 150 per cent fitness, commitment and performance in the domestic season in order to win Pakistan selection. Regarding the reorganisation of the board, he said that a security and anti-corruption unit, an independent internal audit department would be established while the board would also appoint a marketing manager, a trainer, a physio, a regional development officer and a media manager.

The decisions were taken on the report of the LUMS. Announcing the decision, the chairman said that all the posts would be filled through newspaper advertisement and added some of the post had already been sent to the newspapers to be advertised.

He said that the PCB was going to change the system of giving jobs to favourites. "I admitted that in the past many officials were appointed by the then head of the board on personal contacts. Some of them are working well but on whole that practice is not good," Shaharyar said.

He said that although the employees were recruited in the board without merit, they would be sacked in due course of time. He said that the LUMS' report only suggested establishment of departments and it was upto the PCB to determin the strength of staff in those departments.

He said that Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan had been inducted into the constitution committee which would prepare the PCB constitution in four months.