India’s cricket chief Jagmohan Dalmiya on Wednesday rubbished reports that Pakistani legend Wasim Akram was being hired as the bowling coach of the national team.
”I don’t know why some people are making such speculation. We never even thought of it,” Dalmiya told reporters at his Calcutta office.
”The matter was never discussed with Akram, nor has he ever broached the subject before us.”
The Indian Express said in a front-page story on Wednesday that the Board of Control for Cricket in India had agreed to a request from captain Sourav Ganguly and coach John Wright to hire Akram for the upcoming tour of Australia.
”Why Akram? Simply because he is the greatest fast bowler of the modern era,” the newspaper quoted Ganguly as saying.
The brilliant 37-year-old left-armer retired from cricket in May with 414 Test wickets and a world record tally of 502 wickets in the shorter version of the game.
Akram has been signed up by Rupert Murdoch’s television company, ESPN-Star Sports, to commentate on India’s four-Test series in Australia starting next month.
The Indian team, which departs for Australia on Friday, includes three left-arm seamers — Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and rookie Irfan Pathan.
The Indian government last month ended a three-year boycott of bilateral cricket matches against Pakistan, paving the way for the arch-rivals to schedule a long-awaited Test series in Pakistan in March-April next year.
India last played a Test match in Pakistan in 1989. Akram was the Pakistan captain during a three-Test tour of India in 1999.
India open their tour of Australia with two warm-up matches before the first Test at the Gabba in Brisbane from December 4.
The second Test will be played in Adelaide from December 12 to 16 followed by the third in Melbourne (December 26 to 30) and the fourth in Sydney (January 2 to 6).
India, who have not won a Test series outside the sub-continent since 1986, have secured just three victories in 28 Tests in Australia, the last coming way back in 1981.
On the last two tours of Australia in 1991-1992 and 1999-2000, India lost seven of their eight Test matches, five of them inside four days. — Sapa-AFP