Haroon Rasheed appointed as Director Cricketing Operations by PCB

The Pakistan Cricket Board, in a recent development, announced that former Pakistani Cricketer Haroon Rasheed will take over as the Director of Cricketing Operations. Rasheed will play his role instantaneously. Haroon Rasheed previously was appointed as the Chief of Selectors.

About 12 months ago, Rasheed was made the scapegoat for Pakistan’s unsuccessful campaign in the ICC World T20 2016 which was held in India. The Pakistan cricket team could not go past the first round of the competition along with Bangladesh and Australia. India and New Zealand progressed into the semi-finals from the pool. Waqar Younis blamed the Chief of Selectors for their dismal show for making frequent changes into the squad. Waqar emphasized the importance of backing players by giving them a longer run to perform at the highest level for the development of the team.

“Haroon Rasheed was made Chief Selector after the World Cup and since then there have been so many changes on every tour, at times I feel they were stop-gap decisions, but to develop a team, you need to believe in your decisions and give them time” complained Younis post their exit from the World Cup in a scathing report.

Since then Rasheed has always backed Mickey Arthur for bringing in the resurrection of Pakistan’s limited-over cricket. “Mickey Arthur has been saying that he wants Pakistan to play modern cricket,” Rasheed was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune. He also focussed on the necessary actions to be taken by the selectors to nurture young talents by scouting power hitter by frequent visits to stadiums.

“Selectors must have made a time table to visit the stadium during the tournament. The first thing that they need to do is identify power-hitters. The national team needs players who can clear the field with ease. The quality of cricket has improved since T20 format gained popularity. Players can now play with strike rates of over 100 in every format. Thus, the need of the hour is to identify batsmen who can do that for Pakistan. We’ll need such players in the coming years.” concluded Rasheed.