June 22, 2007	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 06, 1428

LAHORE, June 21: One of the world’s leading cricket coach Dav Whatmore on Thursday said Pakistan’s performance in the last World Cup was history and importance should now be given to the future.

Talking to reporters after getting interviewed by a Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) panel for the post of Pakistan’s national coach at the Gaddafi Stadium on Thursday, Whatmore said Pakistan were a good side but everyone needed to learn from the mistakes.

“To me the World Cup is now history, so we should think about the future and the teams not learning from their mistakes and not making an effort to get better will have to face the same (declining) situation again,” Whatmore, an Australian, stated.

Pakistan, under late Bob Woolmer, faced their worst exit at the 2007 World Cup as they could not qualify for the Super Eight stage despite sharing a rather easy preliminary pool with West Indies, Zimbabwe and Ireland to compete with.

Commenting on his interview, Whatmore said: “I had a good session with the panel and held some positive discussion with Zakir Khan and Mudassar Nazar.”

The third member of the panel was former Test wicket-keeper Imtiaz Ahmed.

Asked about his chances for the job, Whatmore said he had left to the PCB but was keen to take up the challenge. “I am here because I am interested in the job. Being a professional coach this is an opportunity to get involved with a very good team and a decent board,” he said.

Terming the job of coaching Pakistan team a challenge, Whatmore said it would be an honour for him to work with Pakistan and he felt confident that he was up to the challenge too.

On his possible association with the Indian team, Whatmore asserted that working with India would also have been great. “I am hundred per cent sure that the Indian team have a lot of potential and enjoy a good reputation internationally. But it would be equally good if I am given the opportunity to work with the PCB,” he said.

Whatmore emphasised that he would focus on each department of the game if hired as Pakistan coach. “If I get the job (to coach Pakistan) my first priority will be to bring improvement in every department and lot of things can be included in that small word of ‘improvement’,” he said.

Whatmore, who has coached Sri Lanka twice besides taking the Bangladesh job as his last assignment, said every team have different problems, posing different challenges however with proper planning, he added, these challenges can be faced.

He believed that coaching Bangladesh and Pakistan were two different challenges and taking into account Pakistan team’s world ranking, he said trhe Pakistan was a far better side than Bangladesh.

Two other Australians – Geoff Lawson and Richard Don have also been interviewed for the coaching job by the PCB. However, well-informed sources told Dawn that Lawson, a former Test pacer, was also a strong candidate for coaching job.

Meanwhile, sources close to Bangladesh cricket authorities said that they (Bangladesh) believed Whatmore was a very good coach for juniors and academy but not that suited for the senior players.

By the looks of things in Pakistan, it seems the PCB will take some more time before declaring the coach’s name.

Director Cricket Operations (DCO) of the PCB Zakir Khan shied away from quoting any specific time frame for the PCB to finalise the name of the coach.

“The top priority of the panel is to give Pakistan the best coach and for it the panel will take its time to take a good decision,” he said.

About Javed Miandad’s statement, Zakir said he was likely to issue a statement on it.

Miandad has criticised the PCB for taking a U-turn in its interview policy (for selecting the coach) while interviewing those candidates who did not send their CVs in response to the board’s advertisement.