Pakistan won the ODI series in India, but the acid test of Whatmore’s coaching was a disaster to say the least. PHOTO: AFP
His list of critics only swelled with the passage of time and as his two-year tenure nears its end, the team manager for the Sri Lanka series, including two Twenty20s, three ODIs and three Tests, Moin Khan, renewed an appeal for a local coach for the national team before flying out to the UAE with the Australian breathing down his neck.
“Even before I started my stint as manager of the national team I had maintained that we have great players who can deliver [as coach] and even now I maintain that a Pakistani [coach] would be the best option for the national team,” he said.
Moin and Whatmore would be the nucleus of the team management which hopes to tame the Lankans, Good luck Pakistan!
Whatmore was handed the reins of the team after his predecessor had coached the Test team to a historic 3-0 series whitewash against England, but the Pakistan Cricket Board wanted ‘more’ and the then chairman, Zaka Ashraf, on the recommendation of the coach selection committee roped in the Aussie.
Mohsin Khan’s record, despite surrendering the ODI and Twenty20 series after overwhelming the English team in the longest format, stood at an enviable six wins out of the eight Tests (no defeats) played during the 2011-12 season.
Whatmore had decent credentials to back him. He was a qualified coach, had helped Sri Lanka win their maiden World Cup and had done okay with Bangladesh.
His stint with Indian Premier League’s Kolkata Knight Riders was a successful one too but the age-old saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was one that the cricket board had seemingly forgotten. The Whatmore venture started with a win in the Asia Cup, but the team soon lost direction succumbing to defeat in the ODI and Test series against Sri Lanka at their own turf.
The limited-overs ‘home’ series against Australia was a mixed bag while the Green Caps fared well in the World T20 before bowing out to hosts Sri Lanka in the semi-finals.
Pakistan won the ODI series in India, but the acid test of Whatmore’s coaching was a disaster to say the least.
Historically, the national team had fared poorly in Australia and South Africa and no one expected miracles in the Test series, then again no one expected a tame 0-3 debacle under the qualified coach.
In exactly a year Pakistan under the same captain Misbahul Haq but a different coach had plummeted from the highs of whitewashing the top-ranked team to the lows of being whitewashed by another top-ranked side.
No one knows how the team would have fared under Mohsin in South Africa but after the Whatmore experience one knows for sure that foreign coaches have done nothing to improve Pakistan’s poor record in away Tests in Australia and South Africa (Whatmore, Richard Pybus, Bob Woolmer between them have managed only one Test win in tours to the two countries)
The record of Whatmore in Tests he coached Pakistan in at present stands at an abysmal 10 played, two won, two drawn, six lost.
The defeats include the humiliation in Harare against Zimbabwe last September. Interestingly Whatmore believes his results are satisfactory. “I am very satisfied. The most relieving feeling for me is that I continued to give a 100% and gave all my efforts as the coach,” he told The Express Tribune before embarking on Sri Lanka tour with the men in green.
His satisfaction is perhaps drawn from a few ODI and T20 series wins. He seems to have forgotten the Champions Trophy debacle in England. Even if we put aside the rollercoaster limited-overs ride, Test cricket, the yardstick of judging a team, is where Pakistan needed so much more from Whatmore! Now the Whatmore swansong is upon us, three Tests more for Whatmore to finally prove his worth.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 15th, 2013.
COMMENTS (10)
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A local coach will be a one out of 180 millions. One bad series and he will be at the receiving end of his own jealous friends who are like vultures sitting around the PCB offices. Well for my liking we don't need the planner type of coaches anyways.The professors are never appreciated in this culture anyways. We need a coach who can make this lot a bit more physically fit. We basically need a hardcore trainer guy and also a UFC'esque cultured person who can shov some venomous hunger for success. We have a 7 footer of a bowler who doesn't give a damn about looking in eyes and doesn't show any intimidation at all. Indians though lack the firepower in the bowling atleast seem like trying. We seem like beecharay unlike the 80's or 90's county trained lethal people like Imran, Wasim and Waqar etc.
@salman azim:
Sir..i agree with you 100%. Pakistani ex cricketers are only good for sitting in tv and trying to pull down foreign coaches without making the effort of getting coaching certification or education like the foreign coaches have. Pakistani ex cricketers also are lazy and have big egos that is why no other country hires them either. That is why they know their only bread and butter is to leech of the PCB and that is why they are desperate to get hired by PCB.
Frankly, foreign coaches have no place anywhere except with people who speak their language and basically understand each other.
It's not about being foreign it's about communication. Sure, with a local coach Pakistan can hire consultants and specialists to help in certain areas like batting, fielding etc..., but that specialist works for and under the guidance of the local coach.
Maybe results haven't been as good as we all would have liked but Dav Whatmore is a professional coach, with a great track record who has done well in a pretty crazy pakistani environment where there are vultures hiding out to get his job behind every corner, and a media that calls upon so-called experts who have vested interests, then asks them loaded questions deliberately to get the answer they want. For a foreigner to put up with all this and more requires a lot of professional and guts, so kudos to Mr Whatmore. Hope we find another foreign coach to replace him, because hiring a local coach would be moving two steps backward.
So if one follows the wisdom of the writer and the stats he published, then Mohsin Khan would be the most sought after coach in the cricketing world, and would already be coaching a top international side. But if that is the case, then how come Mohsin Khan is unemployed and is usually found on some TV Channel every second night, finding ways to promote himself to be employed again by the PCB? I'll tell you why, its because stats are not everything. Under Whatmore, Azhar Ali, Asad Shafiq, Junaid Khan, Khurram Manzoor, Shan Masood were either discovered in the test side, or found their best form under Whatmore. Similarly, Irfan, Sohaib Maqsood, Sharjeel Khan, Zulfiqar Babar, Bilawal Bhatti, Anwar Ali etc were all discovered for the ODI and T20, and guys like Nasir Jamshed, Ahmed Shehzad, found some of their best form under Dav Whatmore. Plus, Whatmore brought about a clear break from the usual in-fighting and faking injuries nonsense that was found under Mohsin and Waqar Younis. Pakistan have a young and developing team, and Whatmore has played a key role in helping find and develop some of the young players. Losing him is Pakistan's loss more than anything else. And if we replace him with a local coach, we can forget about having any dreams to win the 2014 t20 or 2015 50 over world cup.
Whatmore did a good job. It was under him that we found and developed a lot of young players. There is a reason why the world hires coaches based on qualifications not nationality. And there is a reason why no pakistani has ever been head coach of another test playing nation. No one wants pakistani coaches because they think they should be coaches due to their playing experience only whereas other ex test players from foreign nations actually take coaching courses once they finish their playing days, then get certified, then coach their club and domestic teams succesfully before they apply for a national teams coach job. Pakistani ex players think doing all this work is beneath them that is why most of them are unemployed and lobby like mad for the pakistan teams head coach job as they know no other country would bother hiring an unqualified pakistani coach.
Well our current foreign coach is one who sits on the sidelines, with his feet up looking totally oblivious to what is going on in front of him & looking totally clueless as things fall apart at the seems & if that is your idea of a coach, foreign or not, no thanks!
The writer conveniently forgets to consider that all of Pakistan's match fixing, spot fixing, and disciplinary problems have taken place under a local coach. None of this nonsense happens under a foreign coach because foreign coaches are more concerned about doing their jobs professionally rather than take part in media self promotion which is what the local coaches spend most of their time on. Mohsin Khan thinks he had the pads on and was scoring back to back hundreds on the the 3-0 sweep of England so he wants all the credit for that, and keeps promoting that on tv all the time but conveniently forgets the clean series defeat we got at the hands of England in the ODIs. Foreign coaches make a difference because they are professionals, educated, certified and are not interested in anything but their jobs. Id rather take a foreign coach than a unqualified and uneducated local coach anyday.
Hi Yasir Please go through the article again, Pakistan lost the ODI (1-3)and Test series (0-1)to Sri Lanka under Dav Whatmore in 2012 at their own turf (Sri Lanka)
The series that you are referring to is the one played under Mohsin Khan in 2011-12 in the UAE which Pakistan won, Tests 1-0 and the ODIs 4-1
Lol the writer doesn't even knows that Pakistan beat Sri Lanka in the test and odi series in UAE.