Failure to find high-profile full-time coach is slap on Pakistan’s cricket system, opines Misabah-ul-Haq

Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) search for the director of men’s cricket teams is expected to come to an end with the reappointment of Micket Arthur according to several media reports. Arthur had worked with the team as their head coach between 2016 to 2019 and the board is believed to be close to agreeing to a deal with him in the new position. Notably, Arthur doesn’t want to leave his Derbyshire job and so it will run concurrently with being the Pakistan cricket team’s director. 

"I blame our own system, which is vulnerable enough with so many weak lines for anyone to exploit it. We are to be blamed ourselves that we have disrespected and discredited our own people to make a bad image. The present and former lot don't respect each other, with media and former players using their own YouTube channels for ratings, damaging the credibility and value of our cricket which, as a result, gives an impression that we are not capable.”

"PCB is always ready to back foreign coaches but never supports the local ones. They are fond of having overseas coaches because they think locals can easily be politicised and are incapable. But do we know it's the PCB bureaucracy who politicised the structure? They throw the local ones under the bus when they come under pressure and there has never been accountability of this bureaucracy in PCB. It's the mismanagement and the consistent changes at the helm that is a problem and we are never able to find one solid line for our cricket,” he explained.