Whatmore should be held accountable: Latif
“We crossed the 300-run mark only once in six matches, what was the coach doing?” -Photo by AP
ISLAMABAD: Former captain Rashid Latif has questioned Dav Whatmore’s coaching after South Africa humiliated Pakistan 3-0 in their Test series.
“Chairman, captain, vice-captain and coach all should be held accountable and it should start from the coach,” Latif told The Associated Press on Monday.
Pakistan lost the third Test by an innings and 18 runs at Centurion on Sunday inside three days against world’s No. 1-ranked test team. Pakistan’s humiliation began in the first Test at Johannesburg when it was bowled out for its lowest ever total of 49 in the first innings to lose by 211 runs.
Younis Khan and Asad Shafiq scored centuries in the second Test and off-spinner Saeed Ajmal took 10 wickets in the same match, but even those performances could not save Pakistan from a four-wicket loss at Newlands.
“Seriously, I was not expecting a whitewash,” Latif said.
“But the way our batsmen flopped on bouncy wickets it showed there was no homework done.”
Pakistan’s opening pair of Mohammad Hafeez and Nasir Jamshed looked hapless in facing the new ball pair of Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander with both South African seamers taking 35 wickets in three test matches.
“For how long are we going to complain that we can’t bat on fast seaming tracks?” Latif said.
“It’s all lame excuses. Cricket is a game of professionals and if you are picked for the national team it means you are the best to face the best in the world.”
Latif said he got fed up after seeing batsmen repeating the same mistakes again and again while playing seamers away from their bodies and “gifting” their wickets to South Africa.
“We crossed the 300-run mark only once in six matches, what was the coach doing?” he said.
Pakistan’s former wicketkeeper said it was high time for the selectors to look for different players for the three formats _ Tests, one-day internationals and Twenty 20s _ if Pakistan wanted to compete against the top teams like South Africa.
“Our problem is that we pick too many players for all the three formats and this will not solve the problem,” he said.
Hafeez, Jamshed, Ajmal and fast bowler Umar Gul are some of those players who play in all the three formats for Pakistan.
“We have to stop this practice and look for specialists in all the three formats,” he said.
Another former test leftarm spinner Nadeem Khan said Pakistan’s batsmen failed in launching counter-attack against South Africa’s pacers.
“On bouncy wickets if you don’t play your strokes and try to disturb the line and length of fast bowlers, I’m afraid you will give chance to the opposition, that’s what exactly our batsmen did,” he said.
The two-match Twenty20 series begins at Durban on March 1 before the five-match ODI series starts from March 10.
South Africa will now have a long break from Test matches and its next opposition will be Pakistan in October in a Test series which will most likely be played in the United Arab Emirates.
Just an idea to put forward, will it help to play T20 and ODI prior to starting test matches? This may provide opportunity to players to get themselves acquinted with the conditions, the behaviour of bouncy and swinging tracks etc etc.
Like Rashid Latif had done any good in his own time of captaincy….Easy to point fingers when you are not playing out there.
latif himself said on Geo sports that if pakistan looses the first match then there will be whitewash, and now he is saying the opposite.
There should not be any sort of coach in cricket. cricket simply 11 players game have captain as nucleus.
Look at Tendulkar at his age he should be going on a cruise or safari but he’s still amazing to watch, Pakistani players need to stop playing politics and start playing cricket. Rashid Latif put a sock in it, yes you were one of the greatest keepers, but we dont need you to become coach
Instead of the Coach Pakistan Cricket Board and Selection Committee should be made accountable for adopting negative policies during last couple of years.
Comeon, “What more” can he do…
what can whatmore do ? the batsmen are useless and fear pace attack . we do not have the talent as the talent pool has shrunk.
“We crossed the 300-run mark only once in six matches, what was the coach doing?” he said.
yes! Yes! latif, the coach should have gone and batted instead of the pakistani openers. That’s the coaches job, isn’t it? charge whitmore with blasphemy!
Mr. Indian Dude, you need to take out your frustration somewhere else and it is evident that you are here to take out your frustration which has nothing to do with cricket. Your comments are illogical and makes no sense. Rashid Latif is correct in saying that the Coach, Captain and Selection committee should be held responsible for such a poor performance. After all these are full time cricket players who do nothing but play cricket. So there is something seriously wrong here. But again, you are not here to talk about cricket are you?
Completely misplaced criticism. Whatmore cannot make up for lack of ability to face what is now the most dreaded pace attack in the game, that too on seamer friendly SA grounds. Even Australia succumbed and on their home grounds at that! So, this is nothing but hysterical outburst from Rashid…. so typical of him.
“Whatmore cannot make up for lack of ability to face what is now the most dreaded pace attack in the game.” Ahhh what? Its not to disagree here. Whatmore is the coach of the team and thus responsible to teach and better prepare his players to tackle such “dreaded pace attack”. I can’t think of anything better for a coach to do than prepare his team against what is readily known. Whatmore failed here and provided the minimal contribution to his team (judging strictly by the result of the series and the demeanor of the batsmen who often looked frightened and unsure of what to do on the pitch against SA’s attack).
i blame the coach and the captain for the failure of our team