Waqar Younis steps down, PCB forms panel to find new coach

LAHORE: Waqar Younis resigned as Pakistan’s coach on Monday, three months before his contract was going to end.

A day earlier Shahid Afridi stepped down as Pakistan’s T20 captain.

Waqar took the decision after meeting PCB officials here on Monday.

Pakistan fared poorly in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh and the World T20 in India.

Pakistan won only three games out of the eight they played across the two tournaments and failed to make it beyond the first round.  The last series Pakistan won in any format was last October, when they beat England 2-0 in a three-Test series in the UAE.

After that, Pakistan lost the ODI and T20 series to England, and then traveled to New Zealand to again lose the T20 and ODI series. They won only two of the 12 limited-overs matches they played in all against England and New Zealand.

Pakistan are currently ranked a respectable fourth in Tests, but eighth in ODIs and seventh in T20s in the ICC rankings.

“It’s time to go,” Waqar said. “With disappointment and pain I would like to inform that I decide to resign as the Pakistan coach. I, in last 19 months of my job, was completely honest and didn’t leave any stone unturned to help the team achieve the best but unfortunately we couldn’t get the results.

“It was slightly unfair by the board the way the whole case had been handled as my report was leaked and none of the board officials tried to talk about all this. But in all this, I do not want all of you, including ex-cricketers, to forget my services to Pakistan cricket,” he said.

Waqar had recently presented a scathing report, after Pakistan’s exit from the World T20, in which he criticised the PCB’s decision of not giving him a say in the selection process and lambasted Afridi’s style of captaincy. The report was an overview of his two-year term as coach and was submitted to PCB chairman Shahryar Khan and to the board’s fact-finding committee.

The PCB later announced on Monday, among several other measures, that a panel comprising Wasim Akram and Ramiz Raja would assist the board in finding a new coach.

A day before submitting that report, Waqar had offered to step down but had said cosmetic changes would be insufficient to solve the deeper issues in Pakistan cricket.

“I am stepping aside with a heavy heart, and what can I say, the present circumstances aren’t good in PCB,” Waqar said.

“They were looking to make me a scapegoat so it was important for me that I should go with respect,” he added.

It was Waqar’s second tenure as coach. He was appointed for the second time in May 2014 for a two-year contract.  His first stint as head coach was in 2010-11 and he had then resigned citing personal reasons.