LAHORE, April 12: Legendary batsman Javed Miandad on Tuesday revealed that he declined the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) offer to become national team’s batting coach for the upcoming tour of the West Indies for a number of reasons.
Talking to reporters here, Miandad contended that firstly, the national team already had bowling and fielding coaches and secondly inclusion of too many coaches – rather than serving the team’s interests – might trigger blame game.
The 53-old Miandad, a veteran of 124 Tests and 233 One-day Internationals, insisted that one coach was enough, giving him full authority to work independently for the improvement of the team.
However, he said time would tell if he accepted any offer from the PCB as full-time coach.
The master batsman of his era who has coached Pakistan’s national sides in three different spells in the past, said though a player should continue to learn the art of cricket regularly, separate coaches were not essential to tell players basic techniques of the game.
“If the cricketers require separate coaches at this level then they should not be picked for the national duty,” he remarked. “The [selected] players have minor shortcomings which could be rectified here before the squad leaves for the West Indies.”
Miandad believed current Pakistan batsmen could not perform under crunch situations only because they feared axing from the team in case of failure.
He emphasised Pakistan’s present cricket structure needed review, noting that due to ignoring merit in players’ selection regional-level cricket had failed.
