Pakistan cricket team has had its fair share of tough times. Blame it on the chairmanship, the lack of facilities and funding, politics or proper coaching, our favorite sport has given us moments where we hated the game. Shedding light on two tenures, 2010-2011 and 2014-2016, Pakistani wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal says Waqar Younis was a failure as a coach of Pakistan’s cricket team.
While keeper has admired Waqar as one of the greatest Pakistani bowlers, he added anecdotes which clearly, in the eyes of Kamran ascertained how the former coach failed to excel in terms of managing the team.
In an interview to Geo Super channel, here’s what Kamran Akmal had to say:
“Waqar bhai was a failure as a coach and he caused a lot of damage to Pakistan cricket. In his enthusiasm to experiment and sideline established players, he put the national team back by two to three years. I don’t know but he had issues with some players. He had no plans on how to take Pakistan team forward. An example was when he went to the World Cup 2015 and asked Younis Khan to open the innings or his issues on playing Sarfraz Ahmed late in the tournament,”
Waqar Younis was asked to step down and Mickey Arthur took his place, which led to Pakistan winning the Champion’s Trophy 2017. During the former coach’s time, Pakistan’s ranking in three different formats of cricket also went down.
According to Kamran Akmal, Waqar Younis had issues with players and wouldn’t give the experienced players the chances they deserved.
“I remember Umar Akmal scored a hundred in an Asia Cup match and next match he was batting behind Shahid Afridi and others. Waqar no doubt was a great player for Pakistan but as a coach, he was a failure. He took six to seven new players to Bangladesh after the World Cup (2015) and the result was we lost the one-day and T20 series for the first time to them,”
“I have played under different coaches including Bob Woolmer and I can say they used to plan and they used to create a rapport with the players. Waqar insisted on training hard all the time and not having the players also focus on their skills and cricket development was damaging to the team.”
The blame-game has always been heavy for Pakistan. The in-charge bodies need to make sure that they keep their personal motives behind and work together for the prosperity of the affected matter.
What’s your take on this?
