Shaharyar Khan, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi's Cousin And Ex-PCB Chairman, Dies

Lahore: Shaharyar Khan, a career diplomat and former Pakistan Cricket Board chairman who played a big role in restoring cricket ties with India in the early 2000s, died on Saturday. He was 89. The Bhopal-born Pakistan diplomat, who was a cousin of former India captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, breathed his last here after battling prolonged illness.

He served as Pakistan foreign secretary between 1990-94 and also as a High Commissioner in New Delhi and the United Kingdom. Shaharyar headed the PCB from 2003 to 2006, a period when India toured Pakistan twice, and from 2014 to 2017.

He also worked as Pakistan team manager during the 1999 tour of India and the 2003 Cricket World Cup. He belonged to the royal family of Bhopal. A learned personality who also wrote several books on his experiences in foreign relations and cricket, Shaharyar, in an interview last year, expressed regrets that in his last tenure as PCB chief he couldn’t revive regular bilateral Test cricket ties with India which have been suspended since 2007 due to the tense relations between the two neighbours.