ISLAMABAD     -    Former Pakistan captain Zaheer Abbas has asked Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to stop relying on foreign coaches and have courage to trust in local coaches.

Talking to The Nation, Zaheer, who is known Asian Bradman, said: “For last two decades or so, the PCB had heavily relied on foreign coaches and never trusted in local talent. Pakistan is blessed with great talent while our coaches had delivered well for the country in the past and they are capable of performing at the highest level. The PCB needs to provide opportunities to the seasoned local coaches, who have given their lives to cricket.

“If we closely monitor the performances of foreign coaches, they have not given any extraordinary performances. We can’t give a decade to a coach just because of helping the team in winning the Champions Trophy. Now it’s more than two years, when Pakistan cricket team has won the ICC event.

“Everybody has witnessed Pakistan cricket team’s performance in the World Cup. Nobody bothered to pay heed towards maintaining run-rate. After first match humiliation against the West Indies, the team management and coaches were sleeping and never paid heed towards ensuring Pakistan team win matches with big margins. We could have played the semifinals, if we played with proper planning and kept in mind the run-rate factor,” he added.

Zaheer said: “Pakistan team played the World Cup without any planning. It took early matches very easy, which cost them dearly later. The players were in total disarray. Two main players Aamir and Wahab were not part of the team and they were inducted later. Every country, who was playing in such major event had long finalised their squads, but Pakistan was wondering till the very end and that cost us baldy as we despite winning matches against top teams had to go home at league stage.”

The former captain said that overall, Pakistan team performance was not bad at all, but it could have been much better. “Inzamam’s exit won’t help; rather entire team management and coaches should be replaced. PCB now has four years to prepare for the next World Cup so they must focus on grey areas. As far as Sarfraz Ahmed’s captaincy is concerned, I think he must relinquish either Test captaincy or ODI and T20 captaincy to focus on his own form. It will help ease pressure on Sarfraz, team and PCB.

“Pakistan team needs to appoint a full-time vice captain as well and keeping in mind its long-term future. The vice captain must be groomed for future captaincy. Test cricket is very important aspect of the game. We need to focus on producing top class players for longer format of the game. It is high time the PCB must introduce revolutionary steps and implement new domestic cricket structure.

“The strict compliance is the need of the hour, or else players will suffer badly, as already too many players have to sit out. The format from 16 to 6 teams might be helpful for producing quality cricketers, but on the other hand, it will slash significant amount of players and I think youngsters could be the main sufferers. I hope in the coming meeting, PCB MD Wasim Khan will pay heed towards issues of most important nature and try to address all the areas and local coaches will finally get their due share,” Zaheer concluded.