Wasim Akram: “Unhone to laddoo khilaaya hai hum sab ko (we are just being fooled)”
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Legendary left-arm seamer Wasim Akram despises Pakistan’s love affair with foreign coaches, saying everyone is just being fooled.
His comments come after the men in green recently had four foreign coaches, including Mickey Arthur as team director, Grant Bradburn as head coach, Morne Morkel as bowling coach and Andrew Puttick as batting coach.
He noted that hiring non-local coaches doesn’t work since they “aren’t here (in Pakistan) all the time” and don’t put in enough effort.
“Our foreign coaches aren’t here (in Pakistan) all the time. They don’t put effort in going to the NCA and coaching youngsters or other coaches. They don’t work on the man-management and psychological side of things. Unhone to laddoo khilaaya hai hum sab ko (we are just being fooled),” he told Sportskeeda.
The aforementioned coaches were all removed after the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup, with Mohammad Hafeez having taken over as team director and interim head coach, while Umar Gul and Saeed Ajmal were named fast bowling and spin bowling coaches respectively.
Pakistan still have a few foreign coaches in their set-up as Adam Hollioake was named batting coach for the ongoing three-match Test series against Australia, while Simon Helmot was given the role of high performance coach.
Pakistan trail 1-0 in their Test series against Australia as they lost the first Test in Perth by 360 runs.
The second Test will get underway on December 26 in Melbourne.
Pakistan Squad for Australia Test Series: Shan Masood (captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Nawaz and Shaheen Shah Afridi