Saeed Anwar at Pakistan Cricket Academy in Doha

Former Pakistani Test batsman Saeed Anwar (left) giving tips on batting to youngsters at the Pakistan Cricket Academy in Doha yesterday. Anwar visited the academy and interacted with the players.

DOHA: Terming the current state of Pakistan cricket as a “dark phase”, former cricketer Saeed Anwar has called for proper management of the team to get back to winning ways.

“The performance of the Pakistan team has been below par since the retirement of Inzamam-ul-Haq. The team has gone down in terms of results. At the moment Pakistan cricket is going through a dark phase,” the former Pakistani opener told The Peninsula.

He continued: “With proper management and good thinking the team will be back on top. I feel it will take few more years. Australia is also on the down slide in recent times. They ruled the cricketing world for almost 20 years. Now, India and South Africa are doing really well. Obviously, there is talent in abundance in Pakistan. It needs a proper system now.”

Pakistan have been starved of cricket due to security reasons and had to play Australia in Dubai recently as the Australians refused to travel to Pakistan. The team was not doing well under the captaincy of Shoaib Malik and coach Geoff Lawson.

This resulted in Lawson being sacked in October, 2008 and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) appointed Intikhab Alam as the coach. There was also a change in captaincy as well with Younus Khan taking over the reins from Malik in January this year.

Anwar, who has been involved in coaching after retiring from the game, offered his services to help out the team come out of the current situation.

“If I get an offer from Pakistan Cricket Board, I will take up coaching. I am always there whenever Pakistan needs. I have played a lot of cricket at the highest level and want to give back something to the game through coaching,” Anwar said.

“I have coached youngsters in Pakistan and even now cricketers like Salman Butt call me up when they need help on cricketing matters. I have involved myself in coaching in Saudi Arabia also and coaching is not new to me. In Jeddah, they have set up 10 cricket grounds and are promoting the game,” he added.

The left-hander, who still holds the record for highest individual score of 194 in one-dayers, is surprised that nobody has surpassed that score since 1997.

“I am surprised that nobody has managed to go past 194. Records are meant to be broken. It was a memorable innings because I came into that match after four months of being away from the game. I was lucky to have scored that many runs then as I did not have match practice or training going into that big game against India,” Anwar said.

http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Sports_News&subsec...