KARACHI, 16 November — Former Pakistan pacer Aaqib Javed completed a unique experience here at the National Stadium.
Aaqib became the first national cricket selector to play through a domestic first-class tournament, in this case the Patrons Trophy Grade-1 competition, in which he captained Allied Bank in nine matches.
“It was a great experience. I was able to watch from up close the available and upcoming talent in the country. You get a totally different perspective of a player as a national selector when you are playing against him on the field,” Aaqib said.
“For me it was something new. I played against the best talent in the country and I was able to access their abilities and temperament from close range in all sorts of circumstances.”
“What I have learnt is that it is not necessary that anyone who is the highest scorer or the highest wicket-taker in our domestic cricket is necessarily equipped to play for Pakistan at the international level,” he contended.
He said having played for Pakistan himself at Test and One-Day International for a long period, he knew well the requirements of top-class cricket and could differentiate between a player who could be a phenomena at the first-class level, but didn’t have the required mental strength and aggression and attitude to success as a Pakistan player.
“I don’t want to pass judgments. But I have seen them all. I can safely say there is no need for the Pakistan Cricket Board to worry about the future as we have some outstanding players active and keen to play on,” he added.
Describing the Patrons Trophy, in which Allied Bank finished third, as the toughest first-class competition he had ever taken part in. Aaqib said he would definitely be making some recommendations to the board and fellow selectors on the players he had watched and on the quality of cricket he had witnessed not as a player but as a selector.
“This Patrons Trophy was very competitive indeed and to my view whoever has done well in this competition has done so in tough conditions.”
Aaqib also felt that in future, the board should ensure that the national selectors were closely involved in domestic cricket the year round and appreciated the board’s policy of wanting the selectors to witness matches at their respective centers.
“Unless a selector is on the ground and involved with the proceedings, he will only be able to rely on statistics and third party feedback to make a judgment on players,” he maintained.
Aaqib said he would not like to take names as a national selector as he would appear to sound biased, but he insisted that some of the players he had watched were clearly the cream of Pakistan cricket and really outstanding. He took a few names in this regard but insisted they should not be printed.
He had no grievances on the sort of pitches prepared for the Patrons Trophy and stated the good thing was that teams were given varying pitches to play on, which meant they were tested on different surfaces and players got to perform on them.
Aaqib also made it clear that he had no ill feelings with Wasim Akram and had no personal agenda of trying to get him out of the Pakistan team in his role as selector.
“To my mind the job of a selector is to keep even the established players on their toes all the time. If anything I think my appointment as national selector only spurred on Wasim to good things and he has been bowling very well lately. At one stage I thought he had started taking his place in the team for granted.”
PCB allow players to keep 50% Super Sixes amount
The eight member Pakistan squad which won the Hong Kong Super Sixes title on Sunday have been permitted by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to retain 50 percent of the winners purse of $80,000, despite the financial crunch it is facing at the moment.
The Pakistan captain in the Hong Kong Super Sixes, Rashid Latif confirmed from Hong Kong that the players would distribute 50 percent of the prize money among themselves as permitted by the board, while the winners trophy valued at more than HK 300,000 would naturally be placed in the PCB headquarters in Lahore.
The PCB decision on the prize money has come at such an early stage perhaps because of the problems faced in 1998 when the Pakistan team led by Wasim Akram played in Hong Kong.
At that time since the board had not taken a decision on what will happen to the prize money won and the players distributed the money among themselves in Hong Kong after winning the final.
Which did not please the board as it claimed it was already paying appearance fees to the players and the prize money was meant to go to the Board as guarantee money from the organizers.
However, this time the PCB acted more judiciously even though it has been forced to unfold an austerity drive due to the cancelation of tours by India, New Zealand and Sri Lanka in the last one year, causing it losses in revenues worth $15 million.
Rashid Latif said he could not play in the final since he had had a troublesome and infected tooth extracted on Saturday evening in a Hong Kong hospital and doctors had put him on painkillers, which caused him lot of discomfort.
He also stated he was not keen to break up a winning combination as winning the title was far more important for Pakistan than anything else.
He praised the players Wasim, Azhar Mehmood, Abdur Razzaq, Shoaib Malik, Imran Nazir and Shahid Afridi for putting up a committed and superlative consistent performance in the tournament, which was a prestigous one.
