Malik, team to face board review

LAHORE—Shoaib Malik, the Pakistan captain, is expected to be grilled by the Pakistan board in a review meeting set to discuss the recent series reversal against India. Pakistan lost the one-day series 3-2 before going down in the Tests too, their first series defeat in India in 27 years.
Team manager Talat Ali and media manager Ahsan Malik will also attend the meeting, to be chaired by board chairman Nasim Ashraf. Two selectors are also expected to be present, though Salahuddin Ahmed, the chief selector, is unwell and unable to attend. Geoff Lawson, the Pakistan coach, was also supposed to attend the meeting but the board permitted him to return to Sydney for his son’s graduation ceremony. “The meeting has been called to carry out a post-mortem of our team’s performance in India,” Shafqat Naghmi, the board’s Chief Operating Officer, told The News. “Obviously a lot of questions will be asked because we didn’t really perform well on the tour.
“The meeting will not just be about singling out the people who are to be blamed for the defeats in India. It would be to analyse what went wrong during the tour and more importantly we would be expecting people to come out with solid suggestions to bring about improvement.”
As expected, there is speculation about the results of such a review, some suggesting that major changes are in the offing. But that is unlikely and a board source told Cricinfo, that no major changes are expected. There is likely to be a firmer policy on the fitness issues that have so crippled Pakistan on recent tours. Pakistan have only an ODI series against Zimbabwe in January, before their next major assignment: a home series in March-April 2008 against all-conquering Australia. The Pakistan board has reiterated its faith in Shoaib Malik as captain and insist he will remain in the post as originally planned till December 2008.
Malik’s position has come under intense scrutiny following Test and ODI series defeat to India, a second successive reverse in both formats following the loss to South Africa at home. His cause wasn’t helped by an ankle injury which kept him out of the final two Tests against India, both of which were drawn. A number of ex-players, including Imran Khan and Javed Miandad, have questioned the wisdom of Malik as Test captain when he has yet to establish himself fully as a Test batsman.
The backing for Malik came in the wake of a board meeting constituted specifically to review Pakistan’s poor performances in India. The board also decided to prevent players from writing articles during series and concentrate solely on the cricket while on tour. There was criticism of the surge in Pakistani players’ extra-curricular media activities: many were writing for newspapers and a number had separate TV commitments as well. One column by Younis Khan, in particular, seems to have caught the board’s attention. As stand-in captain for the second Test in Kolkata, Younis distanced himself from the team selection, hinting that he might not have been happy with the composition, in a column for Hindustan Times. Though the board has yet to read fully the tour reports handed in by the team management, immediate changes are not expected. The participation of national players in domestic tournaments was again stressed, and three camps, for bowlers, wicketkeepers and openers, have also been arranged for after the domestic Twenty20 tournament. In a surprise change of heart, Younis Khan has said he is now willing to lead the Test side if the Pakistan board asked him to do so.
Younis has long shown a reluctance to lead Pakistan. He gave up the captaincy - and swiftly took it back - last year before the Champions Trophy, and then turned down the post again after the Caribbean World Cup this year.
And he was again an unwilling stand-in captain after Shoaib Malik’s ankle injury ruled him out of the last two Tests against India. “If the board wants me to lead the team, I can do it. But first we [himself and the officials] need to sit down, discuss and finalise some things,” Younis told PTI. Younis had been the official vice-captain for two years under Inzamam-ul-Haq and was widely expected to take over once Inzamam resigned. At the time of his refusal, he also stepped down from the vice-captain’s role, before surprisingly accepting for the tour to India. “I only agreed to be vice-captain for the Indian tour because of the importance of the series. If the matches had been against any other team I might not have accepted this responsibility.
“But now if the board feels I can be a good Test captain, I am willing to do it but after talking to them,” he said. “If the team can do well under my captaincy I would be very happy but I am not asking anyone for the job. This is the board’s prerogative whatever they want to do.

—Agencies