‘Ajmal wasn’t feeling good enough’
Karachi: Rejecting suggestions of an Indian conspiracy in Saeed Ajmal’s pullout from next year’s ODI cricket World Cup, Pakistan’s bowling coach Muhammed Akram has said the off-spinner withdrew as he did not feel “effective enough” after reworking his suspect bowling action. Akram strongly refuted assertions that India was behind the crackdown against bowlers with illegal actions to target Ajmal and Muhammad Hafeez. The PCB announced yesterday that Saeed would continue remedial work on his bowling action and would not be sent for further biomechanic tests to Chennai until he is confident himself about his action. The academy’s head coach said that Ajmal himself will now decide when to take the ICC test. Akram was also asked about the reasons for not sending Ajmal for the informal bowling test in Chennai.
DDCA to sack assistant coaches
New Delhi:The Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA) has decided to offload atleast one of the two assistant coaches as they have had precious little to do during the senior team’s ongoing Ranji Trophy campaign. There are four coaches in the list of support staff and two of them — Maninder Singh Jaggi and little known club coach Ajeet Chaudhary —do not have any cricket specific role. DDCA’s selection committee convenor and top boss C K Khanna on Sunday admitted that one coach out of Chaudhary and Jaggi will be getting the boot soon. According to DDCA insiders, Chaudhary was included in the support staff roster because of his proximity to a very senior cricketer. He is the representative of a local club and is never seen helping out the players in their training session. The same in case of Maninder Jaggi, who had played a couple of first-class matches in early 1990s and has been in the role of an “assistant coach” for the last decade.