If reports are true, then the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is very near to completing the formalities of bringing back Mickey Arthur as the head coach or director of cricket for the Pakistan men’s team.
However, the Jang newspaper reported that Arthur, who coached Pakistan from 2016-2019, will be available on-site only for limited assignments while parallelly working as the full-time coach for Derbyshire County Cricket Club. He will have a handpicked group of support staff running operations.
Arthur is not expected to be with the Pakistan team when they tour Sri Lanka this July or even the Asia Cup in September. But, when the county season is over, he is expected to be physically present to guide Babar Azam and the Pakistan team as they prepare for the ODI World Cup 2023.
However, Arthur is expected to be there for the team for the ODI World Cup in India and the Test tour of Australia later in the winter.
This report has garnered mixed reactions from all quarters of Pakistan cricket with former captain Shahid Afridi expressing his concerns about such an arrangement.
Meanwhile, the report of Mickey Arthur becoming the first-ever ‘online’ coach of the Pakistan cricket team led to a flood of memes on social media.
Here are a few of them:
