Abdul Qadir has resigned as Pakistan's chief selector, barely six months into his stint. The move comes the morning after a dispiriting defeat to England in the ICC World Twenty20 in England, but it is believed that was not the spur for the decision."Abdul Qadir has handed in his resignation to the chairman of the board and it has been accepted," Salim Altaf, chief operating officer PCB, told Cricinfo. "No reason has been given to us by Qadir."
Wasim Bari, the board's HR head, also confirmed that no reason had been provided by Qadir. "All we know is that he handed in his resignation and it was accepted," he said. The status of the other members of the three-man selection committee, ex-Test cricketers Salim Jaffer and Shoaib Mohammad, is for the moment unaffected. "Only Qadir has handed in his notice," Bari said.
Cricinfo understands, however, that differences had arisen between the chairman of the board, Ijaz Butt, and Qadir. In particular, a recent selection committee meeting in Lahore to pick Pakistan's A squad for their tour to Australia is said to have been pivotal in Qadir's eventual decision.
During the meeting, it is believed Butt and Qadir developed differences over the squad's composition. One source said that Qadir had been irked by Butt's less than tactful dealings with him and was disturbed by interference in selection matters. Butt is said to have taken serious objection to some of the selections in the squad.
Qadir's tenure may have been short on time, but it was not short on news. A unique thinker on the game and a straight talker, Qadir was increasingly a voracious media's dream. Soon after the squad for the Twenty20 World Cup was finalised, Qadir publicly expressed his concerns over the composition, in particular Saeed Ajmal's inclusion. The selection of Shahzaib Hasan - though not opposed at the time - also did not go down well with Qadir.
Soon after he was appointed, his ideas on how Pakistan would warm up for the Sri Lanka series in January - with a series of practice matches among themselves instead of domestic cricket - also attracted the public ire of PCB officials. His relationship with Younis Khan, Pakistan's captain, began rockily but is said to have improved over the months. The deterioration in his relationship with Butt, however, appears to have been more critical, leaving Pakistan looking for its fourth chief selector since the 2007 World Cup.
Comments