LAHORE: Though the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has received a number of applications from domestic coaches as well as a few foreign candidates for the post of Pakistan team’s head coach, surprisingly there is no scrutiny committee of technical individuals to take a final decision in this regard.

The last date for accepting the applications for the said position was May 4.

Interestingly, non-cricketing persons like Usman Wahla (director international cricket) and Khurram Niazi (director domestic cricket) are running the key departments of the PCB, which are to deal with these game-related matters.

The PCB so far has not made any official announcement on who will interview the applicants of the said post and who will scrutinize their names.

A PCB official on the condition of anonymity said he had no concrete information if a committee for interviewing and scrutinising candidates existed, while at the same time added that “it might be working”.

Though a number of prominent Test cricketers are on PCB’s payroll including Waqar Younis, Saqlain Mushtaq, Misbah-ul-Haq, Sarfaraz Ahmad and Shoaib Malik. They are working as mentors of the five teams of the Champions Cup, the Board’s premier event. Interestingly, former Test pacer Wahab Riaz is the head of these mentors.

The post of head coach fell vacant in December last year after former Australian fast bowler Jason Gillespie (Test team head coach) and ex-South African batter Gary Kirsten (white-ball head coach) resigned amid a string of poor shows by the Pakistan teams in major international events.

Up till now, the PCB has only sought a head coach for the national team, without mentioning if the selected candidate will be for both Test and white-ball teams, which somehow signals that the next coach will be named for all the formats.

Gillespie and Kirsten, it may be mentioned here, left their positions unceremoniously as they had objected to excluding their role in the team selection.

Bangladesh’s T20 team is scheduled to tour Pakistan from May 25 for a five-match series and it is being said that the new head coach would be named before the start of this series.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2025