Sources in the PCB on Saturday confirmed that discussions had been held with both these Australians and in fact they had been invited meet the Chairman.
KARACHI: Former Australian Test pacers Geoff Lawson and Richard Done have joined the race for the job of Pakistan cricket coach even as their compatriot Dav Whatmore was being reported as the favourite just a couple of days ago.
Sources in the Pakistan Cricket Board on Saturday confirmed that discussions had been held with both these Australians and in fact they had been invited to come down and meet with Chairman Naseem Ashraf in Islamabad.
Since the death of former coach Bob Woolmer during the World Cup, speculations have been rife about who would be the next coach of the Pakistan team.
Ashraf himself has made it clear on a number of occasions that he was looking at a young, qualified foreign coach as he believed they did not carry any extra baggage with them in the team which was an issue with local coaches.
The Board itself has conducted the entire process of selecting a new coach very secretively for reasons best known to them unlike Sri Lanka and India where they have been open about who will be their new coaches (SL has already appointed Baylis). So the process of name dropping has continued unabated.
Lawson was expected to arrive in the country by tomorrow, the "Dawn" newspaper reported today.
"It's a significant challenge. Pakistan is an unpredictable side and they are a under achieving team with plenty of talent. I am flattered I have been invited I have certainly not chased it," Lawson was quoted as saying to the paper
Done, the ICC high performance manager has been to Pakistan before with the Australian academy team and held a couple of seminars in Lahore as well.
The sources said the invitations to Lawson and Done had been extended as Whatmore apparently had not been very responsive in his talks with the PCB.
The former coach of the Sri Lankan and Bangladesh teams with a high profile reputation, sources said, still remained reluctant to take up the Pakistan offer because of a number of reasons.
"One of them is the uncertainty that prevails in the Pakistan cricket set-up particularly with the general elections due soon and it is well known that in Pakistan political changes influence a change in the Board," one source said.
Whatmore is also said to be still hoping for another offer from India after Graham Ford and John Emburey snubbed the Indian offers.
An insider in the PCB offered another interesting insight into the whole process of selecting a national team coach.
"Don't be surprised if in the end the Board decides to appoint former Test pacer Aaqib Javed who has a strong lobby working for him in the cricket circles. An option also might be to appoint a low profile foreigner and Aaqib and make the work together."
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