ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Test cricketer Rana Naveedul Hassan has advised the selectors to travel across the country in order to select good all-rounders for the national team. Rana, who has played nine Test matches, four T20s and 74 ODIs for Pakistan between 2004 and 2010, said after Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq and Shoaib Malik Pakistan yet to find a good all-rounder.
“Our selectors should travel the country and go to the ground themselves and watch games and then select good all-rounders,” he said adding the real reason Pakistan couldn't find decent all-rounders was because we are simply not putting in the effort to find such talent.
Rana said the selector’s job should be to go to the ground and watch the matches. “Whoever is performing well, should bring him in as it would help the team. Sadly this is not happening,”he said. Rana, who claimed 110 wickets at an average of 29.28 in ODIs, while praising Bilawal Bhatti and Anwar Ali, said there was a lot of talent in our domestic circuit but we have to find it. “We have a lot of all-rounders, fast bowlers and batsmen, but the selectors have to spot that talent and then our cricket will improve without a doubt.” Speaking about the need for the batting coach for the national team, Rana said: “We have used local coaches such as Javed Miandad and Mohsin Khan as well as foreign ones like Dav Whatmore. Whether the coach is local or foreign, he should be qualified and should have played cricket before.”
I feel that a coach can only explain something properly to a player if he himself has played cricket.”
Rana said we do need a specialist to help with batting. “Major teams such as England and South Africa have separate fielding, batting and bowling coaches so we should adopt the same approach. In Pakistan we have Inzamamul-Haq, Javed Miandad and Zaheer Abbas who have played a lot of cricket and all of whom can be excellent batting coaches due to their experience.”