Flower’s Pakistan future uncertain

By The Standard | May. 25, 2014

Grant Flower will have to wait a little longer to be certain of his appointment as Pakistan batting coach as controversy continue to dog the administration of Pakistani cricket.

FORMER Zimbabwe batting coach and iconic cricketer Grant Flower will have to wait a little longer to be certain of his appointment as Pakistan batting coach as controversy continue to dog the administration of Pakistani cricket.

By Munyaradzi Madzokere

Barely a week after the Zimbabwean was roped into the Pakistan technical department headed by the legendary Waqar Younis on a two-year contract, an Islamabad High Court (IHC) annulled the committee headed by Najam Sethi and all the decisions it made, restoring former head coach Zaka Ashraf.

This ruling impacted on the Pakistan technical team significantly because their head coach Younis, team manager and chief selector Moin Khan, and other staff along with Flower were appointed during Sethi’s most recent tenure as Pakistan Cricket Board chairman.

Two days later on May 20, the Ministry for Inter-Provincial Co-ordination, which oversees sports affairs in Pakistan, took the issue to the Supreme Court, appealing against the IHC’s decision to remove Sethi and reinstate Ashraf.

The ministry argued that the IHC’s order to reinstate Ashraf was detrimental to Pakistan cricket and would begin a “chain of events that will create immense chaos and destruction, costing millions and millions of rupees, all reforms towards election, constitution making, and international commitments will be at peril.” A stay against the IHC judgement that had removed the PCB administration under Sethi chairmanship, annulled all its decisions, and reinstated Ashraf as chairman was ordered by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali — the three-judge bench — accepted the Pakistan government’s plea on Wednesday, reinstated the Sethi-led management committee to run the PCB, and restored all its decisions.

The bench called all the parties involved for a hearing on May 27, a day of reckoning for head coach Younis; former Zimbabwe batsman Flower and former Pakistan leg-spinner Mushtaq Ahmed; and Misbah ul Haq, the ODI captain, among others appointed by the Sethi-led administration.