Rashid Latif quits as Afghanistan coach

KARACHI: The Afghan national team suffered another blow in their bid to improve their world rankings as their batting coach and former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif resigned just two days after coach Kabir Khan’s services as head coach came to an end.

Latif echoed the same complaints as Kabir, that the Afghan cricketing board had become too controlling and left no room for autonomy for the duo to perform their roles effectively.

“I was not free to impose my ideas on the team,” Latif told the News One TV channel. “From team combination to the match strategy, the Afghan board officials wanted to dictate everything.”

Latif added that not only was his plan for developing cricket in Afghanistan snubbed, the authorities and him could not see eye to eye on the ideal place to hold training sessions.

“Since I had good training sessions with the Afghan cricketers in Jalalabad, I wanted more training sessions there as well as Kabul.

“But the authorities wanted to hold camps in Sharjah. With this attitude Afghan cricket will go nowhere.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th, 2010.