Former Test spinner Iqbal Qasim, who recently resigned as chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board's Cricket Committee, has said that he could not continue to work as a "rubber stamp" official.

Qasim, who had played 50 Tests and 15 ODIs, said he felt his experience was being wasted.

"I decided it is best to step aside because none of my recommendations were taken seriously by the Board and I felt I was being wasted. I could not continue to work as a rubber stamp chairman of the committee," Qasim said.

"I felt they didn't want to use my experience so what is the purpose of continuing as chairman, he was quoted as saying by media reports.

He said his decision to resign was triggered when he felt that past performances and merit were ignored while appointing umpires and match-referees for the upcoming domestic season.

I have always had my reservations about the new domestic structure but when I took up the issue of some deserving officials being ignored by the board they just didn't listen to me and that to me is unacceptable.

Qasim, who has also worked as chief selector in the past, said the PCB would face problems in running domestic cricket without the participation of departmental teams.

If PCB thinks it can look after cricketers and hire them without the help of departments, it's a good thing. But I don't think this is possible in the long run because we don't have many sponsors, especially because of Covid-19 pandemic, he said.

He also felt that PCB CEO Wasim Khan didn't have sufficient knowledge about departmental cricket and decisions were made in a haste to drop departments from domestic game.

PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani, meanwhile, said his preference was initially for eight cricket association sides to replace the 16 regions in the domestic structure.

But after a lot of analysis and strategic reviews, I came to the conclusion that six national teams would provide a high level of competitive cricket required to make Pakistan stronger, he said.

Too many meaningless matches and events were being organised before, which was costing the PCB a fortune without benefitting Pakistan cricket because the regions were not generating their revenues.