PCB's chief curator Agha Zahid is set to face the music with the PCB top brass feeling let down by the pitches used in the ODI series against Australia.
Pakistan Cricket Board's chief curator Agha Zahid is set to face the music with the PCB top brass feeling let down by the pitches used in the recent one day series against Australia in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
The growing belief in the board is that the efforts made and money spent by PCB to prepare pitches that would suit their team have gone down the drain after Australian wrapped up the one-day series in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
The pitches for the first four matches have also come in for sharp criticism from former players and commentators and questions are being raised over what was achieved by sending Agha Zahid and head groundsman Mohammad Bashir to Dubai and Abu Dhabi to prepare the pitches.
Sources in the board said that PCB chairman Ejaz Butt and other officials were unhappy with the way the pitches had played and the curators and groundsmen would be questioned about it after the series.
"What purpose was served by spending so much money and even sending the special Nandipur soil from Pakistan? Clearly this job should have been given to more professional people," a former players said.
Incidentally, the board had even sent coach Intikhab Alam and assistant coach Aaqib Javed to oversee the preparation of the pitches for the five match one-day series that ended on Sunday with a consolation win for Pakistan after Australia had won the series after taking an unassailable lead of 3-1 after the fourth match.
The pitches for the first four matches produced low-scoring games on which batsmen found it difficult to play their strokes and the spinners got exaggerated turn from the surface.
Former England opener Geoffrey Boycott and ex-Australia batsman Dean Jones also felt that the pitches were not suitable for one-day matches.
Boycott pointed out that the pitches actually went in favor of Australia who had the required discipline and application to win on them whereas the Pakistani players didn't use their brains at all and could not adjust to the sluggish nature of the pitches.
Incidentally, chief curator Agha Zahid had earlier faced strong criticism after he prepared a flat wicket for the first Test against Sri Lanka at Karachi in February on which Younis Khan got a triple hundred and two other double hundreds were
scored by Mahela Jayawardene and Thilan Samaraweera in a high scoring drawn match.
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