Haroon Rashid likely to remain as manager

Haroon Rashid is likely to stay on as the manager of the Pakistan team despite his one-year term coming to an end after the series against India. According to a report in The News, a Pakistan daily, Rameez Raja, the chief executive of the Pakistan board, gave Rashid his vote of confidence. "I don't think we will be going for a change in the managership when we sit down to announce the details and procedure of the Pakistan team's future assignments."

The report also quoted Rameez as saying that he was firmly in favour of giving the entire team management an extended run, rather than sacking them after every poor performance by the players. "My personal opinion is that we can't have the team management - and that includes the captain, coach and manager - on trial after every series.

"We need to show confidence in them and we can't have them under observation all the time. The way I see it we will be giving out a long-term contract to the manager also and I don't see any reason in changing Haroon or anyone else now." The board has already announced that Javed Miandad and Inzamam-ul-Haq will continue as captain and coach.

Speaking about the hiring of Greg Chappell, Barry Richards and Daryl Foster as consultants, Rameez said that they would work primarily with junior players and members of the National Cricket Academy, but would also be available to assist the senior team. "Basically Chappell, Foster and even Barry Richards are coming to develop concepts and strengthen our cricket think tank. We will be getting their feedback on the National Cricket Academy (NCA), schools cricket and preparing a panel of coaches for international assignments," he explained. "But we would also like them to spend some time with the senior team players and help them out in anyway they want."

Rameez also informed that Waqar Younis would join the academy as a bowling coach. According to the report, Rameez said: "He is keen to get involved with Pakistan cricket and we have reached an agreement with him."