LAHORE: Lahore Qalandars are planning to utilise all its resources to develop the best possible combination for the sixth edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL).
Lahore Qalandars CEO Atif Rana said this while addressing the Sports Journalists Association of Lahore’s meet the press assembly here at SJAL Office on Tuesday.
He said that their team excelled in PSL-5 and with better combination, they will try to win the PSL-6 trophy.
Atif said: “We will try to make a well-balanced and strong side for PSL-6 to win it in great style. We have got the list of players for the next edition of PSL. The next two to three days are very important for us. We haven’t announced players retention yet while many of our players have moved into the platinum category with their exceptional performances at international level.
“We have the best players of Twenty20 cricket. Muhammad Hafeez is a good batsman with great T20 track record while Haris Rauf and Shaheen Shah Afridi are among
the best fast bowlers of T20 cricket. Dilber Hussain is another example while Sohail Akhtar helped Qalandars win in Abu Dhabi, so we have no dearth of talent but there is a dire need to make the best combination to get desired results,” he said.
Atif said that they have been facing challenges regarding financial model of the PSL. “There is a need to improve the financial model of the Pakistan Super League. Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) should make the PSL model in such a way that it should be win-win situation for all the franchises as well as for the cricket board,” he said.
Lahore Qalandars Director Aqib Javed came down hard on the PCB for the consecutive pathetic performances of the national team, especially against New Zealand, saying if the PCB doesn’t learn the lesson from the failures, the standard of Pakistan cricket will further decline and it will be too tough for Pakistan team to beat even minnows of cricketing world.
“I have never seen such weak bowling and batting units of Pakistan cricket team, which is being destroyed by incompetent and non-qualified coaches. Removing Mickey Arthur as head coach was a wrong decision. The pathetic results one after another are exposing the PCB’s wrong decisions and poor management,” he said.
Aqib lamented that after Sarfraz Ahmed, the PCB couldn’t find an appropriate captain for the Test team. “The standard is so low that after Sarfraz, the management had to hand over captaincy to first to Azhar Ali, then Babar Azam and now to Mohammed Rizwan. They keep experimenting due to which the entire team is suffering and giving poor results, which is disappointing the entire nation. Same is the case with team management as first Inzamam-ul-Haq was chief selector and now Mohammad Waseem is the chief selector. Waqar Younis is actually a commentator and when he gets free time, he starts coaching Pakistan team,” the former pacer said.
