Pakistan sacked national cricket coach Geoff Lawson yesterday, just 15 months after the former Australian paceman took up the position, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said.
The move comes just three days after new PCB chairman Ijaz Butt said Lawson’s contract would not be renewed in April, but that he could not be dismissed immediately for financial reasons.
“Geoff Lawson has been sacked. He has been given three months’ severance pay,” PCB spokesman Raza Rashid said.
Butt insisted the decision to sack Lawson was not abrupt and had been taken after consulting former players and other sources.
“I had a lengthy discussion with him [Lawson] on Friday and did not think that he was a suitable candidate to take Pakistan cricket forward,” he said.
“We have been having a downward slide for the last several months and I hope that this positive change will help us take Pakistan cricket forward,” Butt said.
He said Lawson had wanted the PCB to provide the same level of facilities available to cricketers in Australia, adding, “but I told him we wanted results, which he failed to produce.”
The 50-year-old Lawson was appointed Pakistan coach in July last year after Pakistan’s first-round defeat in the World Cup in the Caribbean in March.
Calls for his removal intensified when Pakistan lost to Sri Lanka in the final of the T20 four-nation event in Canada earlier this month.
Pakistan must now look for a new coach before next month’s three-match one-day series against the West Indies in Abu Dhabi and a Test series against India at home in January next year.
The PCB chief hinted the new coach would be local and could be appointed in the next 10 days.
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