Pakistan’s former chief selector and spin wizard Abdul Qadir on Friday lashed out at chief selector Mohsin Hassan Khan for creating the fiasco over the selection matters with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).
Talking to The Nation, Qadir questioned the chief selector’s motives for calling a press conference and making an internal issue public, if he could resolve it with meeting the PCB chairman. “He must have first chosen a proper way to talk to the PCB chief Ijaz Butt and discuss with him the reservations he had. There should not be any media talk or threats of resignations.”
He said that strict merit should be made as base for the selection as this is the only way to boost the game both at domestic and international level. To a question about how much free hand he has in selecting a team, he replied that it depends upon the personality of a chief selector that how much he follows the merit and does justice to his job. “For me honesty, loyalty and country’s honour is more important. However, selection is bound to faulty under political and other relevant pressures, which is regrettable,” said Qadir.
Recalling his era as a chef selector he said: “I had told the PCB chief about my terms and conditions before taking over as chief selector. I had asked him to allow me to work independently and without any interruption and that I should be given free hand to select the team and only then I would be responsible for any result.”
He further said that other members of selection committee have all the rights to give their opinion where it is required and if they found either any player is controversial or the chief selector is selecting the player who has not performed well, they can take stand on this issue too.
He said certain deserving players are being neglected as the chief selector usually remains rigid with his choices. “The present system of selection is faulty and not proper which cannot take our cricket to the top”, he said.
Talking about selection criteria, Qadir was of the opinion that it was very easy task to select a team as we have first class cricket record of every player and seeing their record, we can easily pick any good and talented player who is consecutively performing well in domestic cricket.
