Multan: Hours after the humiliating defeat in the first Test against England in Multan, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced a revamped National Selection Committee comprising several former players, a retired umpire and an analyst.
England crushed Pakistan by an innings and 47 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. The Three Lions continued from where they left two years ago when they whitewashed the Asian side 3-0 on the 2022 tour to the country.
Despite scoring a mammoth 556 runs in the first innings, Pakistan, remarkably, slumped to loss by an innings and 47 runs.
No team in Test history has ever amassed 500 or more as Pakistan did and then gone on to lose by an innings.
PCB revamp selection committee
The Multan humbling has prompted PCB to rejig the selection committee. The board has added former Test players, Aaqib Javed, Azhar Ali, retired Test umpire Aleem Dar and analyst Hasan Cheema to the committee.
Ex-Test batter Asad Shafiq was already part of the committee after the departure of Muhammad Yousuf who stepped down as national selector recently.
The PCB said that all the members would have voting rights but didn’t reveal whether head coaches, Gary Kirsten and Jason Gillespie would also remain on the committee as voting members.
This is the first time the PCB has included an umpire as a national selector. Aleem, one of the most decorated umpires in the history of the game, recently announced his retirement from international umpiring.
The non-stop game of musical chairs in Pakistan cricket is one of the main reasons behind the national team’s steep decline in international cricket across all formats. The Pakistan board has revamped or changed the national selection committee multiple times since last year under two different chairmen.
The revamped selection committee will begin their duties by picking the squad for the remaining two Tests against England followed by the selection of the white-ball squads for overseas tours of Australia and South Africa.
The Multan humbling has prompted PCB to rejig the selection committee, which now comprises former players, a retired umpire and an analyst. Cricket Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today
