Karachi: Pakistan’s head coach Waqar Younis and his support staff are under fire after chief selector Haroon Rasheed said unnecessary changes and shuffling in the national team was one of the reasons for their 1-3 defeat to England in the one-day series in UAE.
“The series loss is disappointing but at the end of the day the national selectors can only select 15 or 16 players and the team management than has to make best use of them,” Haroon said in an interview.
“We need to look at the fact that too many unnecessary changes and shuffling in the team does shake the confidence of players and affects performances. There is a need to have stability and consistency in team selection,” he said.
It is the first time Haroon, a former test batsman has directly spoken about the team management for not utilizing the selected squad properly.
A well-informed source in the Pakistan cricket board told PTI that Haroon had also written to the top two bigwigs of the board, chairman Shaharyar Khan and Najam Sethi and requested them to look into the matter.
“He has sought a full meeting with the captain, head coach and other coaches in supervision of Shaharyar and Sethi to discuss the performances,” the source said.
When asked about this the chief selector said after every tour/series the selectors usually held a post mortem into the team’s performances with the team management.
Waqar has in particular come under fire for the constant team changes and shifting batting positions in the series in which Pakistan lost three matches on a trot after winning the first one.
Haroon noted that England had stuck with the same playing eleven in the series despite losing the first match.
“In contrast they were changes in every match in our team,” he added.
He said the selectors sat down and selected atleast three proper openers in a team.
Waqar has also been criticized for not playing
experienced opener Ahmed Shehzad until the fourth ODI on Friday in Dubai.
Haroon noted that Pakistan used atleast three different opening combinations in the series.
The source said the selectors were unhappy with the way the team management was playing around with the players selection and felt this was causing problems and not allowing Pakistan team to settle down.
“Haroon is also upset over the way the selectors had to argue and convince Waqar to include Younis Khan in the ODI squad after which the senior batsman announced his retirement from ODIs after just the first match,” the source added.