The Pakistan Cricket Board task team headed by Intikhab Alam will meet today (Saturday) to scan the applications and prepare their recommendations for the appointment of new bowling coach of the national team.
The four-member task team, including former Pakistan captain Ramiz Raja, Zaheer Abbas and Col (r) Naushad Ali will see these applications to scrutinize the list of candidates who have applied for the bowling coach position.
The vacancy was created after the PCB failed to prevent former Pakistan bowling coach Aaqib Javed from moving on to become UAE head coach.
The PCB’s plan, under former chairman Ijaz Butt, was to bring in only a head coach to replace Waqar Younis, who resigned due to health reasons. But the new chairman, Zaka Ashraf, planned to form a team of specialist coaching staff. Dav Whatmore and Julien Foutain were appointed head/batting and fielding coach respectively.
Till the March 23 deadline, PCB received 10 to 12 applications from the candidates for the post of bowling coach as PCB wants to pick new bowling coach will be made well before the next series of the Pakistan team which is in Sri Lanka in June-July.
It will be a tough task for the PCB to shortlist candidates as the major requirement for the applicant is to have at least five years of experience in a similar role with elite cricketers as most of the applicants don’t fulfill this requirement.
The applicants including Ian Pont, the former Bangladesh bowling coach, Bazeegh Zaka, the Maldives coach, and former Pakistan players Jalal-ud-Din, Mohsin Kamal, Sabih Azhar and Mohammad Akram.
Mohsin Kamal has recently ended a three-year head-coach contract with Bahrain Cricket Association and Sabih Azhar, who is currently working with the Pakistan Under-19 team, has ample experience in the country’s domestic circuit are in good books of the task committee. “We are hopeful of finalizing our recommendations before the end of this month so that the team can have a bowling coach before its tour of Sri Lanka,” PCB official said.
