August 20, 2007	Monday	Sha’aban 6, 1428

KARACHI, Aug 19: Former Australian fast bowler Geoff Lawson is scheduled to arrive in Lahore on Monday night to begin his two-year tenure as the new Pakistan national coach.

Lawson, 49, is expected to address a press conference on Tuesday. On the same day, the Pakistan squad for the inaugural World Twenty20 Championship will start a five-day fitness-cum-conditioning camp at the Gaddafi Stadium.

Lawson was officially announced as Pakistan coach on July 16 at a crowded press conference in Karachi by PCB chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf, who described the lanky Australian as a ‘popular’ choice.

Lawson’s appointment ended the long search for a coach, launched by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) following the untimely demise of Bob Woolmer the day after Pakistan were unceremoniously eliminated from the first round of the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.

Lawson, who claimed 180 wickets in 46 Tests and 88 in 79 One-day Internationals between 1980 and 1989, beat his more experienced compatriot Dav Whatmore, the former two-time coach of Sri Lanka who finished a four-year stint with Bangladesh in May, to the Pakistan job.

A former coach of New South Wales, Lawson is already looking forward to the challenges that await the Pakistan team

in the coming months. After

the Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa, Pakistan return home to face Graeme Smith’s Proteas in a series of two Tests and five one-dayers before going to India for another five one-day matches and three Tests.

Although the real test will come early next year when world champions Australia visit Pakistan for three Tests and five One-day Internationals, Lawson recently said the biggest series of the decade will be against India.

“Australia are the top side and to beat them would be fantastic,” he said, before adding: “But to defeat India in India, it’s about 10 Ashes series wrapped in one.”

The Australian, in an interview, also revealed that he once had the ambition to coach his own countrymen, but he switched goals in a bid to take Pakistan to the top.

“I don’t think it’s a big challenge to coach Australia, but coaching Pakistan certainly is. If one really wants to test one’s mettle [as a coach] I think it is elsewhere than Australia,” he remarked.

Lawson also pledged to make Pakistan ‘the best cricket team they can be’. “They can be No 1. I want to show people that I can coach at that [international] level.”

Only time will decide how successful Lawson would be. It will depend how quickly he adjusts to the haphazard environment of Pakistan cricket. His greatest challenge, in the initial months, will be to understand the players, especially the somewhat moody character of Shoaib Akhtar, whose behaviour can be as hostile and erratic as his famed pace bowling.