Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has retained the services of Saqlain Mushtaq as Pakistan’s head coach for the series against Australia.
Earlier, according to a report in Daily Jang, the board has come out to the conclusion that there is not lot of time left to recruit a new coach, and since it’s big series in the context of the World Test Championship, the board doesn’t want to take any chances.
Recently, Mushtaq resigned from the position citing avoiding the travel.
Saqlain Mushtaq has been working with Pakistan since the T20 World Cup
The PCB published an advertisement for 5 various positions in the coaching setup for Pakistan but the process hasn’t been progressed further so it’s likely that PCB will persist with him as a safer option.
“Saqlain Mushtaq, who wanted to return to England, is now ready to continue working with the team.” the sources close to Saqlain Mushtaq revealed.
Notable that Australia is traveling to Pakistan for the first time in 24 years. The series consists of 3 Tests, 3 ODIs, and one T20I.
Saqlain Mushtaq was appointed Pakistan’s head coach right before the T20 World Cup when Misbah ul Haq resigned from the role. He was assisted by Australia’s Matthew Hayden and South Africa’s Vernon Philander who was appointed as batting and bowling consultant respectively. Pakistan did well under his coaching as they won all 5 group games in the World Cup before losing to Australia in the semifinal.
Then the team traveled to Bangladesh where the visitors clean-swept both T20I and Test series by 3-0 and 2-0 respectively. Then at home Pakistan beat West Indies by 3-0 in the T20I series.
Then it was understood that PCB was in favor of appointing a foreign coach so PCB published an advertisement for 5 positions in the coaching setup. Pakistan is set to host some high-profile series in the next two seasons. Apart from Australia, Pakistan will also host England and New Zealand in the next season. West Indies will also travel to play their postponed ODI series.