Whatmore Appointed as Pakistan Coach for 2 Years

Lahore: The Pakistan Cricket Board on Sunday officially appointed Dav Whatmore as the new head coach of the team for the next two years, while Julian Fountain was recruited as the fielding coach.

PCB chairman, Zaka Ashraf made the announcement during a media briefing in which he said Whatmore has been appointed because of his strong background and coaching credentials.

"The coaching committee of the board felt that this was the right time to bring in a foreign coach who is best equipped to exploit the talent in Pakistan cricket," he said.

Whatmore's appointment was a foregone conclusion since he reached Lahore two days back but the PCB held back the official announcement until Sunday for reasons best known to them.

It is not the first time that the PCB has experimented with having a foreign coach with the national team and in the past had hired Richard Pybus, Bob Woolmer and Geoff Lawson.

Ironically none of them could produce outstanding results with the team.

But Ashraf said he was confident that Whatmore could deliver the results because of his past track record with the Sri Lankan and Bangladesh teams.

Whatmore himself said he was confident he could deliver results given the sort of talent that Pakistan cricket has.

"Look Pakistan cricket has a history of producing outstanding talent and I am pretty confident I can produce good results with his team," he side.

Whatmore's immediate assignment will be the forthcoming Asia Cup in Bangladesh.

Whatmore is already supervising a fast bowlers' camp with former Test pacer Sarfraz Nawaz.