Intikhab Alam named new team manager

Former domestic cricket director to accompany team on tour to Zimbabwe and UAE

KARACHI: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Shaharyar Khan has named former domestic cricket director Intikhab Alam as the new manager of the national team.

The senior official is not expected to stay in the position for long with the PCB think tank saddling him in his new role only till the end of the year.

Intikhab replaces Naveed Akram Cheema, who is going to be engaged with the Punjab government once again. In February, Cheema was sworn in as the manager of the team in place of Moin Khan just days before the commencement of the ICC World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

The 73-year-old Intikhab, considered an integral part of the board, is going to work as an interim manager with his mandate including the tours of Zimbabwe and the UAE.

Intikhab was the manager of the team that won the 1992 World Cup under Imran Khan. He first took up the task in 1980 and has reprised the role on numerous occasions over the last three decades.

‘We might take action against Younus’

Speaking to the media in Lahore, Shaharyar added that the board was contemplating action against seasoned batsman Younus Khan after his outbursts in recent days.

Younus claimed on a TV channel that he was not invited to the Pakistan Super League launch event last Sunday, but Shaharyar denounced the claim, terming it ‘factually incorrect’.

“If we had not invited Younus and other greats I would have been apologising,” said Shahryar. “Younus saying he wasn’t invited is factually incorrect.”

Earlier, Younus had criticised the selectors after he was left out of the Zimbabwe-bound ODI squad.

Shaharyar suggested that the board has to do something about the former captain’s persistent misdemeanours. “There are two actions, extreme or moderate, but we have to find a position in between. Something should be done,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 23^rd, 2015.

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