Mickey Arthur and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) are close to reaching an agreement that will allow Arthur to rejoin the Pakistan men’s squad, but as team director rather than as head coach as before.
When the PCB declared it was pushing forward with its hunt for a replacement for Saqlain Mushtaq, the departing Pakistan coach, talks between the two had come to an end three weeks earlier. Since Arthur had a long-term contract with Derbyshire that he does not wish to end, the two parties were unable to come to an agreement on how such a role could function.
Najam Sethi, the PCB’s acting chairman, though, declared last week that he was still seeking for Arthur. A agreement is reportedly close to being completed, and Arthur might start serving as team director on April 1.
This designation, one in which Arthur will serve as a consultant rather than the team’s head coach, will result in an unusual management structure, at least on a global scale, in which he won’t travel with the Pakistan team on every outing but will instead leave the team’s day-to-day operations in the hands of a hand-selected team of support personnel.
The team’s senior assistant coach and a leader among the support staff will be Grant Bradburn, a former Pakistani fielding coach and former director of their High Performance Center. Three coaches for batting, bowling, and fielding will be present instead of the customary head coach.
During the English county season, Arthur won’t be directly involved with the team; Pakistan, for instance, will tour Sri Lanka in July and host the Asia Cup in September. However, Arthur is projected to travel with the team for significant events like the ODI World Cup in India in October-November of this year and the Test tour of Australia later in the winter when the county season is through.
