The idea of hiring foreign coaches has badly flopped in Pakistan’s case, as during the last seven years PCB has hired five coaches including two foreigners, late Bob Woolmer and Jeoff Lawson. They both failed to guide Pakistan to an extent that they needed. Similarly, Javed Miandad, Intikhab Alam and Waqar Younis have also failed to streamline the team’s affairs
No doubt, Miandad was a great player but it doesn’t mean that he could be a great coach too. He failed in his attempts to break players’ power despite enjoying full backing of the cricket top brass. The results expected from him were never achieved. If we closely look at successful cricket playing nations to know the reason behind their success, we will clearly come across one thing that all of these top nations got success owing to relatively unknown persons, who either never played cricket at all or played club level cricket only.
Australians got huge success under Coach John Buchanan, who was a schoolteacher and never played international cricket. He produced remarkable results. Same is the case with Micky Arthur, the South African coach, and many others. With the exception of an only notable achievement by a great player, Andy Flower has also been successful as a coach with England side transforming them into world’s best side.
Pakistan is a poor country and can’t afford to pay handsome amount of money to foreign coaches, especially in the ongoing circumstances when international teams are reluctant to travel to Pakistan on the pretext of so-called security concerns. Pakistan had to play their home series at neutral venues.
The second important factor is that in case the PCB once again opted to hire a foreign coach, firstly, the gentleman will hesitate to come to Pakistan and secondly, the boys will find it very difficult to understand his methods due to lingual barrier. A local coach can easily communicate with the boys and prove successful if PCB follows a simple procedure by appointing a highly qualified local coach. The only criteria in this regard must be achievements made by him.
In present circumstances, PCB according to inside sources, is considering the names of Moin Khan, Aaqib Javed and Sabih Azhar. Sabuh is the Rawalpindi Rams coach, who guided his side to national T/20 triumph without too many notable players.
Aaqib Javed has been associated with the board in some capacity since long. But appointing him as coach will serve no purpose to the board or the players, as he lacks basic coaching methods. Same is the case with Moin Khan, who has no previous experience of even club level coaching. He can be proved a disaster for the team if given the chance of coaching the national side. The PCB must hire his services as a backroom staff member and groom him for future assignment.
Sabih Azhar is the most suitable person among all these above mentioned persons as he is highly qualified and done coaching courses both at national and international levels and has the experience of coaching different club sides and also won the national tournaments with different regions.
The PCB can also hire an internationally famous person as a consultant and utilise his experience to groom their own coaches, as other cricket playing nations do. They hire specialists for every department of the game.
If given a chance, Sabih can produce desired results and can do the job for longer period, as he has the complete knowledge of club level cricket and had travelled to different parts of the country during his coaching assignments. Local cricketers can get huge benefits in case the PCB opts for Sabih. If things went according to the plan, cricket at grassroots level can get a big boost.
