LAHORE- The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) will seek advice from former cricketers, especially those who were the part of the 1992 World Cup winning squad, to construct and formulate a comprehensive strategy for raising Pakistan team for the World Cup 2015.
This decision was taken in a meeting chaired by PCB chairman Zaka Asrhaf here at the Gaddafi Stadium which was also attended by the officials of board and former cricketers.
Various suggestions were made during the meeting and after deliberations, it was decided that advice from former players, especially the ones who were part of the winning squad of World Cup 1992, should be taken. Former captains Javed Miandad and Intikhab Alam, presently serving the board as Director General and Director International Cricket, were asked to contact members of the World Cup winning 1992 team in order to solicit plans from them for the World Cup 2015 in long term and for ICC World T20 in short term. Both Pakistan captains Misbahul Haq (Test and ODI) and M Hafeez (T20) will be part of deliberations.
Javed Miandad was vice-captain to Imran Khan while Intikhab Alam was the manager of the triumphant squad that sealed the World Cup victory in 1992 at Melbourne.
Imran Khan retired immediately after the World Cup 1992 to focus on other matters while most of the rest including Wasim Akram, Inzamamul Haq, Ramiz Raja, Aaqib Javed, Mushtaq Ahmed and Ijaz Ahmed etc continued to serve Pakistan through the decade of 1990s and even up to mid 2000s.
“Most of the 1992 World Cup winning team turned out to be high achievers. They have played some great cricket then and afterwards. The idea is to draw from this great resource of knowledge and experience in order to raise a winning team for the 2015 World Cup which is like 1992 again and brings World Cup back to Pakistan,” said Zaka after the meeting.
“The task is not to merely give suggestions but to draw a blueprint to replicate the 1992 win. The purpose is to start preparing now – with nearly 13 months to go for the event, so that Pakistan team may ready for a shot at the title come February 14, 2015 when the event commences,” said Javed Miandad.
The board has given task to Miandad and Intikhab to invite any other cricketer to this forum whom they feel would help in preparing the plans for the Pakistan team.