Pakistan women's team coach slams skipper Sana Mir for team's early exit from ICC World Cup in England

PTI

New Delhi: Pakistan women's cricket coach Sabih Azhar has lambasted captain Sana Mir and manager Ayesha Ashar, holding them responsible for the team’s shoddy outing in the recently-concluded ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in England.

The Pakistan team faced defeats in all of their six matches in the competition, finishing bottom-most 8th spot in the standings.

As per a report submitted by coach Azhar to Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), excerpts of which have are with ESPNCricinfo, it was the team skipper Sana Mir who had a very negative approach towards the game, while manager Ayesha only paid heed to what the senior players in the side had preached with little to no attention to the younger ones in the squad.

“My humble view is if the set of these four - three players and manager - continue with the national team, there’s absolutely no chance of players’ growth in the team. Juniors need confidence of the seniors, but if they are always criticised and face negative remarks, it would shake their confidence very badly and we should forget growth of women’s cricket in Pakistan,” Azhar was quoted as saying in the report.

The report further termed Sana Mir as 'self-centered'.

“It became clear that the captain Sana Mir is self-centred or self-absorbed; typically she is the last to know it. Her denial to accept self-centredness overshadows her good qualities of confidence and esteem. Too many of our so-called role models, don’t give a hoot about anything except themselves.

“To them, the ‘team’ is nowhere near as important as the ‘me’. ‘What’s in it for me? I want more playing time. I should be starting instead of them! My average, My stats, My salary, etc.’ Similarly, Sana Mir’s ‘me-whining’ affected the mindset of aspiring young players to understand how important teamwork really is to success and any team game is not about ‘me’, it’s about ‘we’” Azhar further added.

The criticism Sana is receiving shows the contrasting nature of cricket in India and Pakistn. While the senior players like Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami were stars of the tournament, the Pakistan coach himself has asked for removal of the veterans from the team.

Azhar even claimed that the skipper 'selfishly' picked herself to bowl at times when batters won't go about attempting to hit big shots.

"Similarly, the captain selfishly used to bowl herself at such a time during the match when she knew that the batters won't go after the bowling and her bowling figures won't be destroyed. She had a jealousy factor in her mind that what will happen if the other bowler takes a wicket or two and gets an extended spell of bowling."

Azhar also said that he was pretty confident of the team's good performance in England, considering the way they prepared themselves at the 15-day training camp in Leicester, but that just didn't turn out to be the case.

"We could have won our opening league match against South Africa before losing narrowly because the girls couldn't handle the pressure at crucial moments. In the second match against England, our bowlers gave too many runs - 377 - and the match was over before our batters went in.

"Against Sri Lanka and the West Indies, our team once again couldn't give the finishing touches and lost both games. Overall, I believe we could have won at least three league matches - against South Africa, India and Sri Lanka - but the team lacked finishing approach at crucial junctures which cost us the games."

Azhar, in his letter, clearly advocates the removal of entire senior brass in the team, while also asking for a change in the staff members