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| March 9, 2003 | Sunday | Muharram 5, 1424 |
Coach Pybus parts company with Pakistan team
JOHANNESBURG, March 8: Coach Richard Pybus said on Saturday he would not be seeking a new deal with Pakistan after the team’s World Cup failure.
He also suggested the team might need a home-grown coach to fulfil its potential.
Pybus said in East London: “I’m not down but it was incredibly frustrating. From a coaching point of view, I was not able to help improve the team’s performance as I wanted to.
“Whether it was me or the players. I don’t know. I didn’t feel the team had moved forward.
“My contract ran out at the end of the World Cup campaign and I’ll now take some time to think things over.”
Pakistan, the 1999 finalists and ranked among the main teams likely to challenge Australia, were knocked out of the first round of the tournament.
Pybus, born in England but based in South Africa where he made his name as a coach with Border, has had several stints in charge of Pakistan dating back to the 1999 World Cup.
“Maybe the team needs a Pakistani coach,” he said.
Pakistan, however, have had a string of their own former Test players in charge in recent years, including Mushtaq Mohammad, Javed Miandad and Intikhab Alam, without achieving consistent success.
Pybus is preparing a report for the Pakistan Cricket Board on the World Cup campaign.
Pybus said the team had not played good cricket “for quite some time” but that poor
form has been masked by exceptional individual performances.
“People always talk about the talent in the Pakistan side but a team is a collective,” he said. “I believe the reasons (for Pakistan’s underachievement) run deeper than what happens at international level.”
Pakistan’s performance in South Africa was their worst since the inaugural tournament in 1975.
They were well beaten by Australia, lost to England after getting the worst of the conditions in a day-nighter and then lost to India after a brilliant innings by Sachin Tendulkar.
The campaign ended unhappily with leading batsman Inzamam-ul-Haq, who scored 19 runs in six innings, involved in a brawl with team mates before the team’s final game against Zimbabwe. That game, Pakistan’s last chance of progressing on net run rate, was washed out.—Reuters
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