June 06, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 01, 1429

KARACHI, June 5: Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson has denied making derogatory remarks about senior players of the national side during a radio interview last month in his hometown in Sydney.

“Don’t believe everything you read in media. I don’t think so. I never said anything about senior players. If you read something regarding me, please ask me,” Lawson, who took over as Pakistan last July, clarified on Thursday.

But contrary to Lawson’s denial, the former Australian Test paceman had told the interviewer Monica Attard, a news and current affairs journalist at Australia Broadcasting Corporation in Sydney that unnamed senior Pakistan players don’t train as hard as they should.

“There are a couple of senior players [who are legends in their own country] who sometimes don’t train as hard as they should and sometimes, when the game gets in a pressure situation, they don’t actually perform. They have in the past but they’re not at the moment, so…”

And when the interview asked for the names, Lawson replied: “It doesn’t serve any purpose for me to say publicly who they are. It does serve purpose for me to tell them privately to their faces.”

In the same interview, Lawson had said the selection process of Pakistan team is done on ad hoc basis rather than on a formed structure while the junior players are overlooked.

“The junior players aren’t considered – oh their opinions aren’t considered highly, selection is made on an ad hoc basis rather than having a process and a structure and all those sort of – and as a foreigner you look at the team and you say, ‘Well who is this guy playing this week? I’ve never heard of him’.

“That’s how Pakistan cricket — it sort of evolves. In Australia, when someone is in the Under 19 team, then they eventually make their State team and then the Australian team, everyone knows who they are. Nobody these days comes along in Australian cricket as a surprise, because the structure and process is, is very formal. Whereas in Pakistan it has been far from formal and that allows a whole lot of indiscriminate selections to be made and ...

“But they’re working hard on that. They’re trying to put a structure into place, so.”

Lawson also said that he and Shoaib Malik, the Pakistan captain, usually have same views on selection matters, but the selectors think differently at times.

“I am one of the selectors, you know my input into a selection meeting and, um, there are five: three appointed selectors and the captain and myself. So I am one of five and the captain and I are pretty much on the same page, which is kind of nice.”

Full text of Lawson’s interview can be found at www.abc.net.au/local/stories.