Wisden overview
Articulate and intelligent, if at times a little too hot-headed for his own good, Tauqir Zia has one of the least enviable jobs in world cricket. A serving general in the Pakistan Army, and a lecturer on field tactics at the staff college in Quetta, Zia runs the Pakistan Cricket Board along military lines. But the delicate nature of his role, especially in the aftermath of the US attacks on Afghanistan, has tended to require a little more diplomacy than he is capable of mustering. Zia is a close confidant of Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf, who persuaded him not to resign after Pakistan's 59-and-53-all-out humilation against Australia at Sharjah in October 2002. As a result, he can come across as extremely arrogant, especially in his dealings with the press, whose competence he once dismissed with a petulant reference to his expensive education. His relationship with the captain Waqar Younis has also been less than harmonious, as Zia is prone to interfering in selection matters, but his preference for action over words has at least ensured that Pakistan has remained in the news for cricketing as well as political reasons. However, he has been unable to persuade India to face Pakistan on the cricket pitch - the fact that he was the man who ordered the attack on Kargil in Kashmir in July 2001 possibly did not help his cause. Andrew Miller

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