Afridi, Yousuf against Whatmore's appointment

Dav Whatmore maybe the front-runner to take over as the next Pakistan cricket coach but some of the senior players, including Shahid Afridi and Mohammad Yousuf, are apparently not too keen to work under the Australian.

According to source, the players are apprehensive about Whatmore who has established his reputation as a hard task master.

"Some of the players are not comfortable because of Whatmore's reputation of being a no-nonsense person who is not afraid of taking on the players in his team on important issues," the source said.

Incidentally, former captain and ex-chief executive of the board Rameez Raja said in an interview that he would like to see Richard Done get the job.

"My vote is for Done because he is said to have excellent management skills," Raja said.

He also pointed out that Done was young and had done some wonderful work at the Australian cricket academy and also as the ICC high performance manager.

Apart from Whatmore and Done, another Australian Geoff Lawson is also in the race for the coach's job.

Former captain, Inzamam-ul Haq, however, has has backed the appointment of Whatmore saying he had the experience and credentials to fill in a void left by someone like Bob Woolmer.

PCB, meanwhile, has still not decided on who will be the new coach even though Whatmore is tipped to get the high-profile job.

Zakir Khan, the Director cricket operations of the board, said that no decision had been made as yet and discussions were still continuing on the new coach.

A spokesman of the board in Lahore said the board would announce its new coach for the senior team and also award the central contracts as soon as chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf returns from UK. Ashraf has stopped over in Glasgow to watch Pakistan play two One-day games against Scotland and India.

A spokesman of the board dispelled the impression that the announcement of a new coach had been deferred until the next meeting of the Ad-Hoc committee expected late this month.

"No, we have got the players' input about the new coaches and we have got the recommendations of the select committee that shortlisted the list of candidates," Ehsan Malik, the communications manager said.

"The chairman returns on July 5 and the central contracts should be awarded and the new coach named soon after," he said.