LAHORE: The National Cricket Academy (NCA) of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has not only transferred the coach of the winning under-19 team of the Lahore Region to Rawalpindi but it has also ignored the second winning coach of Lahore while making appointments at different regions.

It is learnt Kamran Khan, who as assistant coach helped the Lahore Ravi team win the One-day National Under-19 Championships last year, is transferred to Rawalpindi Region.

To fill his post in Lahore, a fielding coach Abdul Majeed from the NCA has been transferred to work as assistant coach.

Surprisingly, the coach of Lahore Lions team, Saud Khan, under whose coaching the team won the three-day event of U-19 championships last year, got no assignment.

In Saud’s place, Javed Hayat has been appointed as coach of Lahore Lions.

It is also learnt that these transfers were made at the time when both Saud Khan and Kamran Khan had played their roles in selecting the Lahore teams for this year’s National Under-19 event, starting from Aug 31.

Surprisingly, the place of NCA Colts coach has also been lying vacant, but even a winning coach Saud Khan, who deserves appreciation and reward has no assignment.

When contacted, National Cricket Academy director development Haroon-ur-Rasheed said the transfers and postings were made according to a specific policy and there was nothing wrong.

He said it did not a matter that some coaches had been transferred at the time when they had picked their teams for the upcoming event.

But when asked how another coach could utilise a player selected by his predecessor who had picked him according to his mindset, Haroon said those were negligible issues.

He said the steps were being taken to improve the grading of umpires for under-19 competitions as they would also be tested in upcoming season to work with head coaches of senior teams of the region in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy matches.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2014