LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has short-listed a couple of names for the coveted post of national team’s head coach but has deferred the announcement for a couple of days in order to gauge the availability of the candidates.

“After a good discussion with all the members of the Board of Governors and with senior pro Younis Khan, we have decided a couple of names for the head coach’s post but we cannot announce them because their final consent is yet to be taken for the job,” PCB chairman Shaharyar M. Khan said during a press conference after presiding over the Board of Governors (BoG) meeting at the NCA here on Tuesday.

Sources, however, told Dawn that Australia’s former international player Stuart Law is the front-runner for the said post which fell vacant after the resignation of Waqar Younis last month following the World T20 debacle in India.

PCB to ascertain availability before announcement

But while Law is indeed the prime candidate for the job, the PCB is unlikely to succeed in hiring him for the job since he has recently signed a contract with Cricket Australia as the team’s batting coach for the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka that spans from July 26 to September this year.

Those dates, in fact, directly clash with Pakistan’s forthcoming tour of England which also commences from the month of July making Law’s chances quite grim to join as Pakistan’s head coach.

The second name on the list is that of Andrew Moles, an English coach who is currently working with the Afghanistan national team.

Sources said Younis and most of the members of the BoG were in favour of bringing in a hard-working person as head coach instead of going after the big names.

Law, according to the sources, was preferred among all the other candidates due to his reputation for being a disciplined cricketer and coach and a very decent and hard-working person.

Discipline and hard-work have been chronic problems with the Pakistani players and it is being felt by the BoG members that a man like Law may be a better choice for the national team.

However, if both Law and Moles are unavailable for the time being, there are chances that Mushtaq Ahmad may be assigned the task of coaching just for the England tour before Law could join the team, the sources further said.

Law played just one Test for Australia besides 54 one-day matches. He also led Queensland to five Sheffield Shield titles and two one-day trophies which is a record in Australian domestic cricket.

To a question, Shaharyar said that the PCB would try to hire the services of the next head coach for at least one to two years because a lot of international cricket is lined up for the team.

He said the new head coach would also be coaching the Pakistan ‘A’ team whie his pay package will be at par with that of Waqar.

He disclosed that all the BoG members appreciated Younis’ views in picking up the best coach for the Pakistan team.

Meanwhile, Shaharyar said that it was decided that two separate cricket committees — for international and domestic cricket — would be formed comprising the cricketers while one member of the BoG would also be inducted.

He said Pakistan Test captain Misbah-ul-Haq was not attending the meeting because he is in Saudi Arabia performing Umra. Both Misbah and Younis, as advisers of PCB chairman, are entitled to attend the BoG meetings.

Shaharyar said he would decide the names of the members of both the cricket committees very soon.

He however added that Misbah, Younis and Pakistan women cricket team skipper Sana Mir will not be among those members and will only qualify after they retire from international cricket. He said one woman member will also be inducted in these committees.

Shaharyar further said that the BoG also agreed to hold school cricket in all the 16 regions of the PCB. He said separate competitions for private and government schools would be organized.

“We want cricketers from schools to develop into fine players and represent the national team,” he said.

In the end, he said the BoG had given some more time to four employees of the PCB to clear themselves from the charge of bearing fake degrees.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2016