Former skipper Misbah Ul Haq, the current Pakistan head coach and chief selector, has full backing of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to continue in his dual role despite failing to take Islamabad United to the semi-finals of this year's edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) in coach's capacity.
Misbah was given special permission by the PCB to also join United as its head coach. But that didn't help the team's fortunes as it crashed out of the six-team race towards the knock-outs, finishing sixth after only three wins and six losses from its ten league games.
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Many critics and experts blamed Misbah and his tactics for United's disastrous campaign. However, the 45-year-old found support from PCB CEO Wasim Khan, who reminded media personnel the "steady progress" Pakistan has made since Misbah took over last year after nation's unsuccessful 2019 World Cup campaign.
"Since he took over as head coach we have seen steady progress in the national team's performances in Tests and T20 cricket," Khan told reporters.
"We have full confidence in Misbah even now but as is our policy we will sit down and review his one-year performance after the World T20 in Australia in October," he added.
"We will do a complete postmortem of his one-year progress and then reach a conclusion."
By "conclusion", to be very clear, Khan didn't mean there is an option of appointing some other coach before Misbah's tenure is finished.
"We have confidence in him and that is we allowed him to coach the Islamabad franchise as we wanted him to gain some experience as well in this position," he stressed.
"You must keep in mind while he is coach of the Pakistan team full-time he only joined the Islamabad franchise few days before the PSL. We wanted it to be a learning experience for him as head coach."
The board, Khan says, will be discussing with Misbah whether he needs more support for the upcoming important assignments in UK, the Asia Cup T20 and the T20 World Cup.
"It is up to him what his planning is for the team but definitely I am sure he and the other selectors would take into consideration performance of players in the PSL when they sit down to finalise teams for the Asia Cup and World T20," he added.
(Inputs from PTI)
