dyton mupawaenda
The Pakistan Cricket Board’s much-trailed ‘connection camp’ended on Monday with what officials said was a roadmap to bring the game out of the doldrums it finds itself in at the moment.
Officials and the team management, including both head coaches Jason Gillespie and Gary Kirsten, described a day of open and robust conversations, including about the lack of unity within the national side, with the two national captains, Shan Masood and Babar Azam, and a group of other players.
The camp was organised as Pakistan stutter through one of the bleakest periods in their history, with administrative tumult begetting a succession of disastrous on-field results. Over the last year, Pakistan have lost to Afghanistan in the ODI World Cup, to USA at the T20 World Cupand most recently 2-0 to Bangladesh in a home Test series.
Speculation has been rife throughout of growing differences in the dressing room, building from last year but propelled this year by the appointment and swift removal of Shaheen Shah Afridi as Pakistan’s T20I captain, and the return of Babar Azam as the T20I captain. Kirsten, the white-ball coach, is said to have been surprised by the degree of it when he first took up the job.
Salman Naseer, the PCB’s chief operating officer, acknowledged that a lack of unity had been part of the discussions, not just within the team but between the board and players.
“The session was about this, that we openly and candidly accept and identify [issues] and ask for a commitment from each other, demand it, on how we can improve our performances and how we work together as a team,” Naseer said at a press conference in Lahore after the camp ended. “Our unanimous view was that we need to resolve this going forward and need to identify how we do it.”
Naseer did not go into the details of the discussions, saying that providing a “safe space” was essential in allowing people to open up. But tension between players and the board has also been building, especially after a number of top stars were denied NOCs to participate in leagues over the summer. Afridi, Babar, Mohammad Rizwan and Naseem Shah were all prevented from playing in leagues before the start of Pakistan’s home season, with workload management the primary reason cited by the board.
“Where the talk is of unity, it wasn’t only about the team,” Naseer acknowledged. “It was between the team and management and how we can work together to do things more successfully. These were definitely part of the discussions. We talked about planning, we talked about workload management.
“Everyone is feeling that the performances of players, and management, can be better. The idea was to sit together, identify issues and what can be better. What our vision is and how do we get there?” — ESPNCricInfo.
Online Reporter