PCB chief Butt says Test batsmen who need coaching don’t deserve to be selected

LAHORE - Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ijaz Butt has said that he is not in favour of appointing a full-time batting coach for the national team.

Butt’s comment comes after PCB’s Governing Council met on Monday to decide if a batting coach was needed for the team or not.

“When a player (batsman) comes to Test cricket … if he needs coaching he should not have been selected,” the Daily Times quoted Butt, as saying.

A source however had claimed that PCB Chief Operating Officer Wasim Bari had already been given the task of negotiating with some prospective candidates, and he had spoken to some foreign and local candidates.

It is believed that the board is concerned with the lack of batting consistency in the national team with the 2011 World Cup also around the corner.

Butt further said that the suspended trio of Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir would not be included in PCB’s 30-man list of probable players for next year’s World Cup.

The list would be sent to the International Cricket Council (ICC) by November 30.

“If they get exonerated then we can (ask) permission from the ICC to include them. Suspended players could not be included, that is very loud and clear,” Butt said.

The trio was suspended in September after a British tabloid alleged that they were involved in ’spot-fixing’ the Lord’s Test against England in August.

The players had appealed against the suspensions, but an ICC’s code of conduct commission, headed by Michael Beloff, rejected it after a two-day hearing in Dubai on Sunday.

The innocence or guilt of the players will now be judged at an independent tribunal, the date of which has yet to be set. (ANI)