Aaqib Javed hits back at Shoaib Akhtar, compares Qalandars with RCB

Lahore Qalandars’ Head Coach Aqib Javed, in an interview with Cricket Pakistan on Saturday, hit back at legendary former pacer Shoaib Akhtar for his comments that he could have won Lahore Qalandars an HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) title if he was in charge of the franchise.

The 48-year-old stated that he found it strange that an individual with no experience in coaching could make such bold claims.

“When you are on TV as an analyst and giving your opinions then it is your right. They should criticise people who aren't performing and why shouldn't they? That is the job of cricket experts. But I find it very strange when they say that if they were in charge, they would have won the franchise at least two titles so far. If a big coach, who has spent 10 to 20 years in the field and has won many titles was saying this then it might make some sense,” Javed said.

“When we won five out of six games, all other sides were looking at us and how great our bowling was and our batting options. We were really hard to beat. Nobody was saying at that time that it is all because of Aaqib Javed. When your bowlers, batsmen and fielders aren't performing, you can blame a coach for selecting the wrong team. Maybe we could have drafted better people or made a better playing XI. They should talk about these technical details. What can a person say to an individual who is talking about something he hasn’t done in his life? What you haven't done always seems easy to the onlooker,” he added.

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The Lahore Qalandars coach stated that the team was let down by the batsmen in the side, after failing to qualify for the HBL PSL 6 playoffs, while also comparing his side with the underperforming Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises.

“The sadness of the fans is completely valid. Sometimes teams get stuck. If you see all around the globe, many big teams are yet to win titles in their respective leagues. I don't know what causes this and why things don’t click sometimes. But the owners have invested millions into the team and they can't just hand it over to someone else. Look at the example of Royal Challengers Bangalore, Kings XI Punjab and Delhi. Delhi even changed their name but it didn’t work. These teams haven’t been able to win, despite being big franchises, in the past 12 years,” he said.

“Any team that wins five out of six matches at the start, it should be very easy for them to qualify for the next round. Even when the first round ended, three teams had won five matches each. We lost out because of the run rate. The sad thing is the four matches we lost continuously. We were in control of those matches as well. It wasn’t like we were chasing a very big score. The top-order batting has been a big letdown for us this time around. If people ask me the real or technical reason for this, it is because none of the batsmen got to a fifty in the top order. It becomes very hard for a side to win in such a case. I don’t think Lahore deserved to qualify ahead with the way we were playing,” he concluded.