June 06, 2017
BIRMINGHAM: Pakistan’s beleaguered cricket coach Mickey Arthur has earned backing from the chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board Shahryar Khan who feels that the team’s South African head coach has made a big difference.
Mickey was under fire back home after Pakistan lost the opening game of ICC Champions Trophy against India by 124 runs.
Many demanded Mickey to be sacked, but Shahryar Khan disagreed with them.
“It is unfair to demand sacking of coach after one defeat against India, I don’t agree with such things,” Shahryar Khan told Geo.tv in an exclusive interview in Birmingham.
“Mickey Arthur’s performance has helped us, he is teaching our players to opt for 21st century cricket, the team has improved under his coaching. His overall performance good, he has made a big difference and will continue to do so,” Khan said.
Shahryar, however, said he was equally disappointed as any other Pakistani was after Pakistan team’s defeat by India on Sunday.
“Our team wasn’t that bad the way it failed against India,” said the chairman PCB.
“I was very disappointed because our performance against India wasn’t good. We did well in West Indies, but failed against India. Batting was very fragile. It was painful to see the team losing to India,” he said.
The chairman added that he was satisfied with performances of young Hassan Ali and Shadab Khan in the high voltage game, which eventually ended as one sided affair in India’s favour.
Shahryar Khan said that there is no investigation into Pakistan’s defeat against India as particular but there will be an overall review of the team once ICC Champions Trophy concludes.
“We will review the performance after ICC Champions Trophy, I have tasked the committee to review after the tournament ends, we still have two matches left and I am hoping that Pakistan will bounce back, we will see after all the matches are done. There won’t be any panic button,” Shahryar said.
The chairman PCB emphasized on the fact that India has improved a lot and has left Pakistan behind in standard of the game, but also added that PCB is also working to help players adopt 21st century cricket.
One of the areas, according to the chairman PCB, where the board is working is the domestic cricket.
“We are working on improving standard of the game back home. General perception is that our domestic cricket should be improved. I have minimized the domestic teams from 26 to 16 and we will further minimize it, but sometimes we are also criticized for curtailing teams,” he said adding that the PCB wants quality, not quantity.
“Our pitches aren’t good, there are hardly two three pitches in country where we get proper bounce rest the pitches are dead. We have decided to improve standard of pitches in country.” He added.
The chairman PCB stated that Pakistan is still playing 20th century cricket while others are playing 21st century cricket.
“We don’t have that approach yet, we need to play aggressive cricket, even in Tests. We are working but we won’t get fruits overnight,” said Shahryar Khan.
The chairman PCB said that Sarfraz Ahmed is quick learner and has proved his skills as captain in limited over cricket, but he has yet to prove himself as mature as Misbah ul Haq was to become Test captain.
“Sarfraz is not an automatic choice for test captaincy, he must show his worth. He lacks the level of maturity Misbah had but he is very quick learner and very smart. He has proven in limited overs cricket that he has learnt very quickly. I believe that he will get mature in a year or so,” he said.
The chairman PCB revealed that the bilateral cricket ties between Pakistan and India were near to resumption in 2015 when he and his Indian counterpart Shashank Manohar had reached an agreement, but Indian government didn’t allow it to happen.
“BCCI wants to play cricket with us, but we can’t do anything if government doesn’t allow us. On 26th December 2015 I agreed with Shashank Manohar to play a series in a third country, other than UAE but yet Indian government didn’t allow it to happen,” he said.
The chairman added that PCB is not begging India to play, but added that cricket can be used as confidence building measure between the two countries to bring people together and understand each other.
“Our government should press on cricket being used as CBM between Pakistan and India. There were times when it could have been presented, specially when Sushma Swaraj was in Pakistan for a conference and then when Indian PM Modi arrived in Pakistan, but it didn’t work,” he said.
Shahryar who is stepping aside as chairman of PCB this August, said that he was disappointed that he couldn’t bring international Cricket back to Pakistan during his tenure as chairman of PCB but hoped that it will happen soon.
“I am disappointed that I couldn’t bring international cricket back home in my tenure, we brought Zimbabwe in past, a world XI team is coming but nothing more than that which is disappointing. International cricket has to come to Pakistan for betterment of Pakistan cricket.”
Shahryar, however, was happy that he was able to launch school and university cricket program, which – according to him – will give country better cricketers in future who are well educated and mentally strong to learn from others.
“School and university cricket would give us educated cricket, unless you are educated you can’t move forward. If you can’t read what others have written then you can’t learn,” he said.
