LAHORE – Pakistan coach Waqar Younis and team manager Intikhab Alam called Tuesday for a fresh start for the national side after three key players were handed lengthy bans on corruption charges. “It is important that it’s finished now and we can start afresh,” Waqar told reporters at Lahore airport.
“We can now make a fresh start after a lot of controversies affected Pakistan cricket and I am happy that it’s over now.” Waqar was coach during England tour where the scandal erupted and gave testimony to the ICC tribunal in Qatar by tele-conference, but said the bans did not affect the successful New Zealand tour.
“The players didn’t talk about it at any time, so there was no way it could affect the team’s performances on the tour,” said Waqar, who welcomed the 3-2 one-day series win in New Zealand.
“I am sure this one-day series win will give us a good build-up for the World Cup,” said Waqar, who took over as coach in March last year. “We have good momentum, having played South Africa recently and now this hard-fought win in New Zealand gives us good momentum for the World Cup.”
Team manager Alam expressed sadness at the bans but added, “we must move on from here, for the sake of our cricket.” One-day captain Shahid Afridi, who earlier flew into Karachi from New Zealand, refused to answer questions on the bans.
