PCB officially forbids coaches from running private YouTube channels

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has designated a star-studded coaching panel for the National High-Performance Centre in Lahore and the six newly formed cricket associations.

Simultaneously, as per reports from PakPassion, PCB has put forth some guidelines and contractual obligations for the coaches at the HPC in Lahore.

The coaches have been officially banned from running their own YouTube channels. This does surely come as a setback to many as YouTube channels were a stable source of income and a platform to express their opinions.

Several Pakistan cricketers voice their opinions through privately-run YouTube channels

YouTube is a platform used by many former Pakistan cricketers, including Inzamam-ul-Haq, Saqlain Mushtaq, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Wasim, Faisal Iqbal, and Javed Miandad.

On numerous instances, their comments and remarks have raised eyebrows and courted controversy, meaning that they have received flak from fans as well as from members of PCB.

Pakistan’s domestic structure and standards have always been the area of focus, courtesy the below-par performance of the national Test side, which is currently teetering at 7th in the ICC Test Rankings.

Thus, the PCB has decided to put this to rest by overhauling the previous domestic system and replacing it with a totally new one. The High Performance Centre in Lahore has also been completely renovated.

The first name on the list of the new appointees is former Pakistan Test stalwart, Mohammad Yousuf, who is the country's fourth-highest run-scorer in Tests.

He has been roped in as the batting coach at the HPC in Lahore. In his illustrious career spanning 12 years, he amassed over 16,000 international runs, etching himself as one of the most prolific Pakistan batsmen to have ever played the game.

On his appointment, the former captain also expressed jubilation and looked pretty keen to start his ‘second innings’ with intent and optimism.

“I am delighted to have been offered this opportunity and I firmly believe I can help young cricketers by transferring my knowledge and experience, which I have acquired after being part of one of the brightest and formidable eras of Pakistan cricket,” he remarked.

Pakistan’s domestic cricket calendar is fairly idle with only five official tournaments. The domestic calendar comprises the following - Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, National T20 Cup, Pakistan Cup One-Day Tournament, and the National U-19 Cricket tournament.

PCB is expected to announce the official schedule of the new domestic season this week, with the Quaid-e-Azam trophy kick-starting the season.

List of coaches in the face-lifted HPC appointed by PCB

New appointees

Abdul Razzaq, Aizaz Cheema, Basit Ali, Faisal Iqbal, Ghulam Ali, Humayun Farhat, Irfan Fazil, and Zafar Iqbal.

Other than these international cricketers, seven former first-class cricketers have also been handed debut coaching stints in the upcoming domestic season by PCB.

They are Aftab Khan, Aslam Qureshi, Fahad Masood, Habib Baloch, Hafiz Majid Jahangir, Hanif Malik, and Mohammad Sadiq.

Retained coaches

Abdul Rehman, Akram Raza, Bilal Ahmed, Fahad Akram, Hussain Khosa, Iqbal Imam, Kamran Khan, Mazhar Dinari, Mohammad Masroor, Mohammad Wasim, Rafatullah Mohmand, Saeed Anwar Junior, Sajjad Akbar, Samiullah Niazi, Saqib Faqir, Shahid Anwar, Shoaib Khan, Tahir Mahmood, Tanvir Shaukat, Wasim Haider and Zahoor Elahi.