Waqar Younis resurfaces as likely head coach

Published April 14, 2014
Waqar, who has coached Pakistan in 2010 and 2011 before resigning on health and personal grounds, has again expressed his willingness for the post after his previous application was rejected. -File photo
Waqar, who has coached Pakistan in 2010 and 2011 before resigning on health and personal grounds, has again expressed his willingness for the post after his previous application was rejected. -File photo

KARACHI: Just a day after Moin Khan was tipped to head the national selection committee of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), it emerged on Sunday that another former national team captain Waqar Younis is also being considered for the vacant position of head coach.

Sources close to the PCB have indicated that ex-Pakistan head coach Waqar is in talks with the Najam Sethi-led cricket board to succeed Moin, like Waqar another former national skipper, who was only appointed for the Asia Cup and the ICC World Twenty20 following the end of Dav Whatmore’s two-year contract with the Pakistan side on Feb 28.

Waqar, who has coached Pakistan in 2010 and 2011 before resigning on health and personal grounds, has again expressed his willingness for the post after his previous application was rejected in early February by a PCB coach-finding committee. The board had also advertised on January 21 for the posts of batting coach and fielding coach.

At that point in time the committee — that also included Wasim Akram, Javed Miandad and Intikhab Alam as well as PCB’s chief operating officer Subhan Ahmed — decided to pick Moin who was then serving as the Pakistan team manager since the tour of Zimbabwe last August.

Sources said that Waqar didn’t get the desired blessings of those who mattered then. Moin only got the job because Wasim Akram vehemently backed the former national wicket-keeper with another ex-skipper and Miandad, who was the then PCB director general, throwing his weight in Moin’s favour.

But the PCB, according to the sources, is keen on roping in Waqar for second term as the head coach.

Moin, on the other hand, is now certain to take up the crucial role of chief selector after Sethi’s first-choice candidate Rashid Latif opted against working with the PCB only last Wednesday for reasons which still need clarity from the man who was regarded one of Pakistan’s finest wicket-keepers.

The PCB, which has not seen rapid changes on the team management front but also witnessed Sethi and his predecessor Zaka Ashraf twice swapping the chairman’s hot seat, is set to meet on Monday before announcing the new appointments.

Moin, who seems to be playing the game of musical chairs over the past 10 months ever since his affiliation with the PCB in different capacities, held the chief selector post after being appointed to the position on July 15 as the successor to former Test spinner Iqbal Qasim when Sethi was the acting board chairman with limited powers.

When an Islamabad High Court order reinstated Zaka Ashraf as chairman on Jan 14, Aamir Sohail — yet another former Pakistan captain — was nominated by him to head the national selection committee. But it turned out be a short-lived announcement as Zaka was sacked in early February by the government.

But during his fleeting second stint, Zaka met Waqar in Dubai on the sidelines of the ICC Executive Board to work out details in which Waqar had wanted to work. However, that discussion and another one in Lahore some days later proved premature as Moin was appointed to succeed Whatmore.

Now it seems the PCB wants a fresh beginning after the Pakistan early exit from the World Twent20 in Bangladesh earlier this month which cost Mohammad Hafeez the national side’s captaincy.

With the ‘all-powerful’ Sethi—enjoying the full backing of the Nawaz Sharif government—adamant on revamping the image of Pakistan cricket, the next few days would be avidly followed by all quarters concerned.

Until the official word comes from the PCB hierarchy, there is a feeling of ambiguity as to who would be the chief selector, head coach or even team manager. While Moin has experienced two of the posts, the long-time PCB employee Zakir Khan went to Bangladesh as the makeshift team manager.

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