Former Pakistan captain Moin Khan was vocal in his criticism of the Men in Green’s head coach-cum-chief selector Misbahul Haq with regards to captaincy and team selection. 

While talking to Cricket Pakistan in an exclusive interview, the former wicketkeeper-batsman said that there is no consistency in Misbah’s selection of players.

“There is no consistency in selection and players are being picked on personal likes and dislikes,” said Moin. “Despite giving players a fair chance, Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal were dropped after just two matches. Also the likes of Imran Khan snr and Usman Qadir were selected without any notable performance in domestic cricket.”

He added: “Giving Misbah the dual role of chief selector and head coach is also a wrong decision because he can’t do justice to both positions. How can he motivate his players to do well, as the head coach, and at the same consider dropping them from the side?”

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Moin, who was part of Pakistan’s triumphant 1992 World Cup campaign, was also disappointed over the removal of wicketkeeper-batsman Sarfaraz Ahmed from captaincy, especially in T20Is. 

“I think it was a ridiculous decision to remove Sarfaraz Ahmed from captaincy and especially the T20 format,” he said. “Pakistan were the number one side, under his captaincy, for almost a year which is a remarkable achievement in the shortest format of the game.”

Speaking about the team’s new captains, Moin said: “Giving Babar Azam and Azhar Ali the captaincy in T20I and Tests, respectively, is another questionable decision because its goes against the policy Misbah has been reiterating in press conferences,” he said. “We wanted to groom Babar as captain for the future, by making him vice-captain for Sri Lanka series, but we gave him the authority after just one series. On the other hand, despite stating that we were building the team for the future, we gave Azhar the captaincy in Test cricket, bearing in mind the fact that he had stepped down from the same role few years back.”

He also urged Misbah to stick with the younger players, no matter what the result is in the upcoming tour of Australia.

 “I think it’s a good decision to give youngsters a chance but the tour won’t be an easy one,” he said. “Now that Misbah has selected this bunch of players, he needs to stick with them, no matter what the outcome is during the Australia series. There is no point in giving youngsters a chance during the tough upcoming tour and then resorting back to the senior players, if the former fail to succeed."

FULL INTERVIEW