Ex-Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq lashes out at PCB, says foreigners and locals alike don't want to work with board

Misbah-ul-Haq lashed out at the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for their policies that have been detrimental to cricket in Pakistan and have resulted in both foreign and local coaches not wanting to work with the national team.

Misbah, one of Pakistan’s most successful captains who had recently served as head coach and chief selector, added that the PCB should not be run in a “haphazard manner” the way it has been in recent years.

“If you look at the policies of the board, leave alone foreign coaches I don’t think even our local coaches want to work with the PCB.

“Pakistan cricket should not be run in such a haphazard manner and we need to have long term plans for the team management, selectors and grooming of players. Unfortunately in Pakistan a change in the board leadership changes everything,” Misbah, who currently coaches the Hyderabad franchise in the Sindh Premier League, told reporters in Karachi.

Misbah had served as head coach between 2019 and 2021, and was also briefly the chief selector of the team. He had resigned from the coaching job in September 2021, shortly before cricketer-turned-commentator Ramiz Raja took over as the PCB chairman, with pace legend Waqar Younis also stepping down as bowling coach.

More recently, Pakistan head coach Grant Bradburn and Director of Cricket Mickey Arthur, who had previously served as coach, had also resigned from their respective roles after the ICC World Cup in India last year, where the team once again failed to reach the semi-finals thanks to an underwhelming display in the group stage.

It wasn’t just the coaches who have been affected by PCB’s decisions of late according to Misbah. The former captain felt that players too weren’t able to perform at their optimum levels as they weren’t given a feeling of security.

“I believe you can’t make a good team or groom quality players if proper time is not given for this process. We need to look at the systems of some other countries who are successful,” Misbah added.

The poor World Cup performance resulted in star batter Babar Azam resigning as captain across formats. The PCB, which had been briefly managed by an interim committee led by Zaka Ashraf, would go on to appoint batter Shan Masood and pacer Shaheen Afridi as Test and T20I captain respectively.

As for Pakistan’s prospects in the T20 World Cup that takes place in the Caribbean and the United States later this year, Misbah felt that Afridi and Co had what it takes to pose quite the challenge to England, Australia, India and other top sides.

“Our players are also used to conditions in the West Indies so we should be among the front runners,” Misbah, who was part of Pakistan’s World T20 triumph in 2009 as well as their runner-up finish two years prior, added.