Although its an open secret yet the coach of the national women’s cricket team has inked the obvious: Captain Sana Mir, seniors and team manager Ayesha Asher are responsible for the shambolic all-defeat show in the women’s World Cup.
It seems the whole Pakistan knows this, but it had to come for one of the officials involved. Coach Sabih Azhar, who gallantly took up the challenge to help the team barely a month before the mega event, has submitted a hard hitting report.
Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Shaharyar Khan had also come out in media over the shambolic performance of the women’s team in the World Cup where they lost all seven group matches, even losing to lowly ranked Sri Lanka.
Sabih was given the task of coaching the team after Kabir Khan’s dual role of being the women’s team coach and that of Habib Bank was called into question. Kabir left the women’s team as he realized that any bad performance will earn him a sacking. He had that valid reason (or some say pretext) that he can’t travel abroad because of his mother’s illness.
Sabih has an enviable record of coaching Rawalpindi to national titles in top eight National Twenty20 and various other tournaments besides being a reputed Pakistan Under-19 coach.
In his report Sabih has blamed “Captain Sana Mir, some players and manager Ayesha Asher responsible for the all-defeat show in the World Cup.”
“There is a nexus existing in the women’s team,” writes Sabih. “They do what they want and throughout the tournament Sana’s thinking was negative. Sana only cares about the performance of Javeria Khan and Nain Abidi as if they are the only players who mattered.
He goes on, “Ayesha (manager) has a dominating role. She gave the 11-member ream against the West Indies to the organizers without letting me know. Most of the junior players are not satisfied with Ayesha and in the presence of three senior players (Sana included) and Ayesha no junior player can come to the prominence.”
Sabih has also suggested that considering the 2021 Women’s World Cup “a young and talented player should be appointed as captain.”
With Shaharyar Khan already advocating a reshuffle of the women’s team and passing his suggestions to the new PCB set-up under Najam Sethi it is likely that some new players be inducted in the women’s team.
After all Sana has enjoyed a 12-year career and it is time she quits. Not all coaches can be wrong and not all of them can be disregarded.