For example, in Pakistan, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is the national cricket board.
What does a cricket board actually do?
Think of it as the management/governing body of cricket, rather than simply the organization that selects the national team.
| Area | Cricket board's responsibility |
|---|---|
| 🏏 National Team | Appoint selectors, coaches and support staff; manage the men's/women's national teams |
| 📅 International Cricket | Arrange Test, ODI and T20I series with other countries |
| 🏟️ Domestic Cricket | Organize first-class, List A, T20 and other domestic competitions |
| 👶 Grassroots Development | Develop young players through academies, age-group cricket and talent identification |
| 🏆 Tournaments | Run domestic tournaments and sometimes franchise competitions |
| 👨⚖️ Officials | Develop and appoint umpires, referees, scorers and match officials |
| 🏟️ Stadiums | Maintain/manage cricket grounds and facilities under its control |
| 💰 Finance | Manage broadcasting rights, sponsorships, ticketing, grants and other cricket revenue |
| 📺 Broadcasting | Sell/manage TV, streaming and digital media rights |
| 📜 Rules & Regulations | Implement ICC regulations and establish domestic cricket regulations |
| ⚖️ Discipline | Handle disciplinary matters, misconduct and breaches of cricket regulations |
| 🌍 International Relations | Deal with the ICC and other national cricket boards |
| 📈 Commercial Operations | Sponsorships, merchandise, advertising, licensing and commercial partnerships |
| 🏏 Women's Cricket | Develop and operate women's national and domestic cricket |
| 🧑🎓 Education & Training | Coaching, umpiring, strength & conditioning and other professional development |
| 🛡️ Integrity | Anti-corruption, anti-doping, safeguarding and integrity programmes |
So what is the board's job?
At the highest level, its job can be summarized as:
Make sure cricket in the country functions properly—from a child playing his first organized match to the national team playing an international series.
It therefore has three broad responsibilities:
1. Governance
Who makes decisions? What regulations apply? How are competitions administered?
2. Operations
How are teams, tournaments, grounds, officials, schedules, contracts and finances actually run?
3. Development
Where will the next generation of players, coaches and officials come from?
An important distinction
A cricket board is not supposed to exist solely for the national team.
For example, if Pakistan's national team wins a major tournament, that is obviously a major outcome. But the PCB's performance should also be judged by things such as:
- Is domestic cricket producing quality players?
- Are young players getting proper pathways?
- Are women's and men's cricket developing?
- Are stadiums and facilities improving?
- Are umpires and coaches being developed?
- Is the board financially sustainable?
- Are selection processes credible?
- Are tournaments professionally organized?
- Is the board protecting the integrity of the sport?
In other words, the national team is one product of the cricket system—not the entire purpose of the cricket board.
Is PCB working as a Cricket Board or as a PR stint?
If you are asking for my blunt assessment: at times, the PCB behaves more like a PR-driven institution than a properly functioning cricket-governance body. But I would not say it is only a PR agency.
The distinction is important.
The PCB's own mandate is substantially broader: it describes itself as Pakistan's sole governing body for cricket, with responsibility for regulation, administration, management and promotion of cricket. Its stated strategic priorities include governance, international teams, grassroots pathways, women's cricket, commercial revenue and Pakistan's global cricket image. (PCB)
Where the "PR agency" criticism becomes legitimate
A cricket board should primarily be judged by outcomes and institutional processes:
Domestic structure → player development → selection → coaching → preparation → performance → accountability.
But when an organization spends disproportionate energy on:
- controlling the narrative after failures;
- issuing defensive press releases;
- explaining why a controversial decision was necessary;
- announcing personnel changes as "reforms";
- managing criticism rather than addressing its underlying causes;
- emphasizing image, optics and individual personalities;
then you start getting PR replacing governance.
And the current situation gives ammunition to that criticism.
After Pakistan went 2–0 down to England, the PCB made an extraordinary mid-series overhaul: seven players were sent home and head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed was replaced, with former captains and coaches describing the move as panic-driven and lacking planning/stability. (Reuters)
Now, only days later, the PCB has announced an internal disciplinary investigation following reports concerning player conduct. (The Guardian)
That creates a very important question:
Is the PCB solving the underlying cricket problem, or continuously managing the public reaction to the problem?
Those are two completely different things.
The Elephant in the Room is the cycle
I'd describe the dysfunctional model like this:
Poor performance
↓
Public criticism
↓
PCB announces major change
↓
Press conference / statement explaining change
↓
Public debate shifts from performance to personalities
↓
Another defeat
↓
Another change
↓
Another explanation
That's not sustainable cricket administration.
A properly functioning board should instead operate something closer to:
Identify structural problem
↓
Diagnose it using evidence
↓
Create multi-year intervention
↓
Implement it consistently
↓
Measure results
↓
Hold responsible people accountable
↓
Adjust strategy if necessary
The PCB's own previous strategy explicitly talked about accountability, transparency, ethics, professionalism and long-term planning. (PCB)
So the standard shouldn't be particularly difficult to establish: judge the board against its own stated objectives.
And here's where I would be especially critical
A cricket board shouldn't need to constantly convince the public that it is doing a good job.
The cricket structure itself should demonstrate it.
If Pakistan has:
- excellent domestic cricket,
- engaging local audience more.
- a functioning talent pathway,
- transparent accountability
- good pitches,
- result oriented outcomes
- strong coaching development,
- teach the coach's concept
- professional selection,
- transparency
- stable team management,
- hierarchy based team management,
- proper sports science,
- incorporate data doctors regarding performances from grassroot,
- good player contracts,
- contracts on accountability
- strong women's cricket,
- less social media influence,
- competent administration,
- respect analysis
then the PCB doesn't need to spend enormous energy defending itself.
The evidence becomes the PR.
And this is particularly relevant because the PCB's own governance framework gives its Board of Governors responsibilities covering policies, discipline, recruitment, budgets, finances, stadiums and overall management—not merely media communication. (PCB)
So my verdict
I'd put it this way:
PCB is a cricket board by mandate, but whenever narrative management becomes more visible than cricket development, it starts behaving like a PR agency.
And that is a legitimate institutional criticism, not merely an insult.
The more interesting question—and probably the one you're getting at—is:
"What should a genuinely professional PCB be doing instead?"
That can be mapped quite objectively. We could take 10 core responsibilities of a national cricket board and then audit the PCB against each one—Governance, Domestic Cricket, Talent Development, Selection, Coaching, Infrastructure, Women's Cricket, Financial Management, Integrity, and National-Team Performance—and see whether PCB is actually functioning as a cricket board or merely looking like one.