KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB)’s choice of hiring Mushtaq Ahmed as the spin bowling coach will raise quite a few eyebrows given his chequered record in his earlier stints with national team.

The 43-year-old Sahiwal-born leg-spinner, who now lives in a posh Lahore locality, was first appointed bowling coach in 2005 despite his tainted reputation. When a lot of hue and cry was raised over Mushtaq’s appointment, cricket board director operations Abbas Zaidi — who was the then PCB chief Shaharyar M. Khan’s right hand — indulged in a heated argument with sections of media and even threatened those media personnel of dire consequences if they wrote against the former Test player.

Somehow sanity prevailed when Zaidi, also a former diplomat who died last June, was forced to issue an apology to all concerned, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

But after Shaharyar resigned in the wake of the Younis Khan episode in October 2006 and replaced by Dr Nasim Ashraf as the new PCB chairman, Mushtaq was soon back in the limelight as the assistant coach.

But on the intervention of Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive at the time, Mushtaq was grounded just hours prior to Pakistan’s departure for the ICC Champions Trophy in India. Speed had reminded the PCB of their responsibilities in the wake of the Justice Qayyum Commission Report in the year 2000.

Mushtaq was then fined Rs300,000 since he was one of Pakistan players implicated in the report; the commission had recommended that Mushtaq not only be censured and kept under close watch but also not given any office of responsibility — such as selection or captaincy — in the (Pakistan) or on the cricket board after being found guilty for allegedly fixing an ODI against Australia in a tournament hosted by Sri Lanka in 1994.

But contrary to Speed’s ‘warning’ to the PCB hierarchy, Mushtaq was still obliged when Inzamam-ul-Haq, who was Pakistan captain at the time, managed to influence the PCB to get rid of Waqar Younis — then serving as the bowling coach — before the 2007 World Cup.

shameful performance in the mega event hosted by the West Indies was overshadowed by the untimely death of their English coach Bob Woolmer in the team’s hotel in Kingston.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) were also advised by the ICC against employing Mushtaq because of his involvement in the corruption scandal during his playing days.

“We highlight anybody we’ve got on a list who has been labelled in one way or the other, so I wrote to the ECB and issued them with a cautionary suggestion that they had to do due diligence on Mushtaq. But they were satisfied with the appointment,” Haroon Lorgat, who was the ICC chief executive at the time, was quoted as saying in The Guardian in September 2010.

“We suggested they had to be vigilant around their own changing rooms. We at the ICC do not employ people who have been tainted in the past but the ECB are entitled to make their own decisions.”

England, while taking notice of the ICC letter of concern, still chose to employ Mushtaq ahead of the Ashes tour in 2010-11 with team director Andy Flower welcoming his appointment by stating at the time: “I am very comfortable with Mushtaq. He’s been a good coach, a good example to our players and support staff.... We’re very comfortable working with Mushy. He’s a lovely man and a good man for our system.”

But with the elevation of Peter Moores as Flower’s replacement, the England think-tank has relieved Mushtaq, a decision which is yet to be officially intimated by the ECB.

Sources here say a number of people are feeling uneasy over Mushtaq’s reattachment with Pakistan cricket.

“The PCB, it seems, is not in a mood to learn from mistakes committed in the past. Former players who had tarnished Pakistan’s image are obliged left, right and centre,” an ex-PCB official told Dawn on the condition of anonymity. “The signs are ominous that Pakistan cricket is heading nowhere. The board has double standards. They banned a player [Danish Kaneria] on an English court decision but are unwilling to take action on the findings of a Pakistani court.”

With Mushtaq becoming the second high-profile signing after Waqar Younis was appointed as head coach last week, the PCB is in the process of finalising contract details with Richard Halsall, who was England’s fielding coach from October 2007 and was axed in the England shakeup.

Halsall, 45, is a Zimbabwean who had played in a few matches and worked as fielding trainer at the National Cricket Performance Centre in Loughborough after moving to England.

According to sources, Waqar has recommended the PCB to recruit Halsall after going through his CV which also reads that the he has vast knowledge of the game with a degree in sports science and an individual who can double up as trainer as well.

“The board coaches-finding committee is in constant touch with Halsall and his appointment is a foregone conclusion,” the sources said.