Reports | PM Imran Khan rejected Mickey Arthur’s two-year extension
According to a source, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan rejected a two-year extension to the national team’s head coach Mickey Arthur. It is understood that the board had assured Arthur of an extension in the role despite Pakistan's failure to reach the knockout stage of the World Cup.
A highly reliable source has come out saying that an influential member of the Pakistan Cricket Board’s Cricket Committee and some other officials in the board had offered assurances to Arthur on his job.
“Arthur was very confident after these assurances that is why he came down to Lahore and spent quite a few days in anticipation of an extension but he was also disappointed and shocked when the PCB announced they were not retaining him or the support staff,” the source told PTI.
The source said that PCB chairman Ehsan Mani had spoken to Imran Khan, who is patron-in-chief of the PCB, on the matter. However, it seems the former skipper made clear orders for a complete overhaul of the team management.
As such, the board officially stated, last week, that it was inviting applications for all the coaching roles in the team.
Under Arthur, Pakistan reached the summit of the ICC T20 rankings, and won the ICC Champions Trophy in 2016.