David Leggat: Delivering a kick in the Butt

Does cricket possess a worse administrator than Pakistan's board chairman Ijaz Butt?

There are a few contenders for this award.

Giles "I'm Going Nowhere" Clarke - England and Wales Cricket Board chairman and shonky Texan Allen Stanford's bedmate - leaps to mind, and don't get started on the rogues running Zimbabwe cricket.

However, considering the sensitivity of events in the wake of the Lahore terrorist attack this week, Butt takes the lamb kebab for his ham-fisted outburst at match referee Chris Broad.

Broad, to quickly recap, was lying flat in the van at the Lahore roundabout as security police were gunned down around him and gunmen took potshots at him, the umpires and the Sri Lankan team. One policeman played dead beside the van and another hid behind nearby shrubbery until danger passed.

So Broad let rip at the Pakistan administrators over the appalling lack of protection for the team and match officials.

He is on rock solid ground, in practical terms of what happened during the incident - he was, after all, front and centre when the bullets were flying - and from the perspective that the outcome shows there can be no argument that he is right.

Reverting to his days as an England opener, he planted his front foot forward and swung hard.

But Butt - and that's the spluttering sound the Pakistan boss was making yesterday - wasn't having any of that.

Broad, he said was making false statements, "big lies" and "obnoxious comments". There were policemen present, he said because six of them were killed. Ergo, the players and officials were being protected, seemed the nub of Butt's response.

"So if someone is complaining about just a scratch, then it is very sad," Butt said, presumably aiming that piece of ire at Broad.

Has there ever been a more wrong-headed reading of a major incident surrounding a sports team? How could a senior administrator put both feet knee deep into an issue where sensitivity would have seemed essential? It may be that Butt felt his country's security forces needed some verbal support in a time of stress. Or it could be that in terms of possessing a skerrick of diplomacy in his veins, he's on a par with a goat.

Butt has said the Pakistan board would lodge a formal protest with the International Cricket Council against Broad. This, you would think, is not the time for Pakistan chests to be puffed out at perceived injured pride.

Better to pull his head in and see how investigations into the incident unfold and wait for the ICC to do the right thing. And that's simple: they must beef up security for all teams. No half measures.

International players' body Fica and its local operators around the globe at times sound like a broken record with demands for action on behalf of their members. On this, they are right and the sooner the ICC come up with a coherent, all-embracing plan the better.

Some countries have security advisers; others don't. India does not have a players association. Having all countries reading from the same script would be a start. Butt played eight tests for Pakistan.

His profile describes his batting as dependable and his wicketkeeping as capable. He seems to have carried neither trait into his latest position.