The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is keen on bringing back Mickey Arthur as men’s team head coach, reported ESPNCricinfo on Tuesday. Three years after he was refused a contract extension and removed following Pakistan’s fifth-place finish in the 2019 ICC 50-over World Cup, PCB wants to bring Arthur back as the current head coach Saqlain Mushtaq does not want a new extension when his deal ends next month. PCB also wants to move on from Mushtaq.
The new PCB management committee, which took charge the previous week, headed by Najam Sethi, has decided to go back to the South African. Sethi has confirmed that he is in touch with Arthur. Arthur served as Pakistan’s head coach from 2016 to 2019. During his tenure, Pakistan accomplished some great things in white-ball cricket. They won the ICC Champions Trophy in 2017 after defeating arch-rivals India in the final. The side also rose to the top of the ICC T20I team rankings in his tenure.
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Arthur was removed after Pakistan’s 2019 World Cup campaign and former player Misbah-ul-Haq had been given the dual role of coach and chief selector. Ramiz Raja and his Board were recently ousted by the Pakistani government after the PCB’s 2019 constitution was revoked and a 14-member committee chaired by Sethi was given full executive authority to work on restoring the department structure, which had been eliminated in 2019 after Imran Khan was elected as the nation’s prime minister (the PM of Pakistan is the PCB’s patron-in-chief).
The new committee will have 120 days to amend the PCB constitution, replacing the 2019 version with the 2014 version. According to the 2014 constitution, the committee will be in charge of choosing a chairman and creating a board of governors. All committees established under the defunct 2019 constitution, including the selection committee, were dismissed on Friday by the new PCB management committee which took office on Thursday. Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi was appointed the interim chief selector for the national men’s team on Saturday.
Afridi will have former teammates Abdul Razzaq and Rao Iftikhar Anjum to work with him in a three-member committee. Pakistan was whitewashed for the first time at home after England managed to clean sweep the three-match test series this month.
The Asian side is currently playing a two-Test series against New Zealand at home.
