PCB to discuss WI tour report with Waqar

The PCB has requested national coach Waqar Younis to return to Pakistan after the Ireland tour, instead of going to Australia, to discuss manager Intikhab Alam's report on the West Indies tour. Waqar was supposed to go to Australia to see his wife, who is unwell, but has been asked to return to Pakistan if her illness is not serious.

"We want to discuss in detail the report of manager Intikhab Alam on the tour and if Waqar comes here it will help us discuss the report in a better way," Subhan Ahmed, CEO of the Pakistan board told reporters in Lahore.

There has been speculation over differences between Waqar and Shahid Afridi, and matters apparently came to a head during Pakistan's recent tour of West Indies, where Afridi was the captain for the limited-overs leg of the tour. Afridi was reportedly unhappy with what he saw as Waqar's interference in selection; one report claimed Afridi almost walked out of a selection meeting ahead of the fourth ODI against West Indies and had to be persuaded by Intikhab to come back.

Afridi hinted at these differences upon his arrival from the West Indies for which he was issued a showcause notice by the PCB and subsequently was replaced as Pakistan's ODI captain for their tour of Ireland. Afridi pulled out of that tour and has since announced his "conditional" retirement from the international game, as a mark of protest against the way he has been "humiliated" by the PCB. However, Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman said that there were "solid reasons" for the removal of Afridi as ODI captain and the board would take appropriate action after submission of the tour-report after the conclusion of the West Indies tour as well as deal with Afridi's showcause notice.

Former Pakistan cricketers have criticised the board's handling of Afridi. "This is a mistake of [the] PCB administration. Afridi never took any names while he criticised the policies and board took note of that. Why [is] no one in the government taking notice of PCB's actions of last three years?" Moin Khan told AFP. Wasim Akram agreed that the board had been unfair towards Afridi, but said the captain should not have gone public with the team's issues. "As Pakistan captain, Afridi should not have made his differences with [the] coach public and should have solved them without coming to the media," he said. "But the PCB has also not tackled this fairly."

Subhan said that Afridi would not be part of the meeting and added that the PCB would first discuss the report with the team management.