Former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad has backed another legendary former player from the country, Wasim Akram, as the head coach of the national team. The 62-year-old’s position was known following a lot of speculation surrounding the future of current coach Mickey Arthur after the Men in Green failed to make the semi-finals of the recently concluded cricket World Cup. In fact, Pakistan has failed to win quite a few series in a row which has put the South African-born coach under the scanner.

Other nations benefiting from cricketers like Akram, not Pakistan, feels Miandad

Miandad, who was known for his mercurial conduct in the playing days, has backed the idea of having a local coach and not a foreigner for the high-profile job. He said while other cricket-playing nations were benefiting from the expertise of people like Akram, Pakistan was failing to do the same.

“Look the world is availing from the expertise of Wasim Akram and our other players as they tell their players practically through demonstrations on how to remove faults and improve [their] performance. Their tips are doing wonders. So, if other nations are availing from their expertise why can’t we ourselves benefit from our former great cricketers?” cricketpakistan.com.pk cited reports quoting Miandad. The former legendary batsman had also served as the coach of Pakistan during their historic tour of India in 1998-99. On that tour, Akram was the captain of the side.

“They’ll at once jump to take the credit if players perform well under them. But if they (players) [fare] poorly in some international event, they put the blame on the players, saying they (players) are unwilling to learn and improve their skills. You can hire the services of a foreign professional coach if you don’t have experts in that field. But if you have more competent people at home for that slot, then it would not be fair to rope in a foreigner.”

Miandad feels foreign coaches who depend more on the digital medium can still be hired but at the district level. According to him, such coaching methodologies could help in conditioning budding players but at the highest level, such a coach is required who can give on-ground training and remove the players’ weaknesses.

A member of Pakistan’s World Cup-winning squad of 1992, Miandad said most of Pakistan’s players come up from rural backgrounds and are not adept in handling the hi-tech culture. He said the upbringing of those players doesn’t take place via computer or laptop training and hence asking them to adjust to the same at the highest level would create problems for them. Miandad conceded that digital coaching is working fine in other countries but cautioned that there is a difference between the systems that prevail in those countries and Pakistan.

“We need trainers at the senior level and not coaches,” he added.