Foto-Album » sentiment has been echoed by oddsmakers,

Watch and read part one of the interview hereWhen you gave up the game, was there a sense of relief at that time, and did you think you would stay involved with cricket in this capacity? How did the idea of coaching germinate in your mind? I always wanted to stay around the game - this is all I know. When I left cricket, I went away for a year and then I started coming back into the media side and I did commentary. I did a bit of coaching, but more media [work].Then I felt that I can make things better in Pakistan cricket. In 2009, I put in my application for the [coachs position]. I did a couple of courses and I got the job. And I enjoyed every bit of it.Before that, you were bowling coach with Bob Woolmer. Theres the famous incident at The Oval where your team was accused of tampering with the ball. Can you think back to those memories? Yeah, I thought the whole episode was pretty ugly and it was unnecessary of the umpire [to penalise us]. We, the team and the captain, felt that it shouldnt have happened.More than the five-run penalty, it was the allegation that was ugly. The entire team sat down - Inzamam-ul-Haq was the captain - and decided, this is not fair.And you were okay with that? You thought the team should have not played? Look, my view didnt really matter in those days. Bob Woolmer, Shaharyar Khan was there, and then there were a lot of other people there. My say wasnt that important.This was not new to you. Pakistan went to England in 92, won a series famously and got accused of tampering with the ball. Is it that the skill of reverse swing is not understood? I think this art is not really understood. There are some who have understood - [Lasith] Malinga, Darren Gough, there are lot of others who have done it. [Mohammed] Shami, the youngster from India, has understood. I think people dont realise that its not only the shape of the ball or the condition of the ball. It has a lot to do with your action and the speed with which you bowl. I feel its still not really being utilised. If you look around at the fast bowlers, there are many conventional fast bowlers with a very easy action. It needs a certain kind of action to be more and more effective and more useful.Is that something that comes from the bylanes of Pakistan? How did you learn? More fast bowlers from the subcontinent have come from Pakistan - thats why probably you relate this to Pakistan. But its a subcontinent thing, because we play on very, very dry and slow and dusty pitches, where the ball gets scuffed up very quickly. When I was in the Under-19 team, I used to know how to reverse. It is something you learn when you play on those sort of surfaces.At Lords in 2010, when the no-ball incident happened, you had a conversation with Mohammad Amir about the actual delivery. When it happened, we were in a very good situation. That was the first morning of the Test match and England were five down. I sort of asked him, What the hell was that? There were couple of no-balls, and not small no-balls, they were huge no-balls.Because he was not someone who had a history of bowling no-balls. Yeah, that was more surprising for me. In the court, they asked me the same question youre asking, and I asked him the same question.Salman Butt, of course, jumped in and he said: I told him to do it because Jonathan Trott was coming down the track, and I said, just bang in a couple short, dont worry about the no-ball. This is the answer I got from the captain and the bowler, and I bought it, you know. If a captain tells you that this is a tactic, you will say, yeah okay, fair enough. They were five down for 50-odd runs - happy days.When the news breaks, as coach and as someone who has gone through this in the past yourself, was there a sick feeling in your stomach that there is something terribly wrong here, or was your first instinct, No, this cant be true. I trust my boy? It was sickening not only to me, but to the entire unit. Yawar Saeed, the manager, was very upset. We all were very upset. We couldnt really play the next day. At one stage, I thought: do I really want to carry on with this whole thing? Then I went back and spoke to my family and I couldnt really leave the team at the time. Its not their fault. Its maybe one or two who have done it, but the rest dont deserve all this. If I leave now its going to get worse. Then Misbah took over and we did extremely well after that.This young gifted bowler coming through the great legacy of you guys and all the fast bowlers who have preceded you - did you feel cheated by him? I think more than him, it was Salman Butt. I was really let down by him because he was the captain. The little one, Amir, was very, very down. Why I feel for him is because he was only 17 or 18 - very young and from a very poor background. He was just a kid. More than him, I was upset with Salman Butt.When Amirs sentence was over and he was free to play for Pakistan again, you had returned as coach and you were in his corner. A lot of people in the outside wondered that here was Waqar, betrayed as coach by this boy. Players said they would not attend camps, former cricketers said he should not be playing cricket. Why were you willing to give him another chance under your watch? We make mistakes and we get punished and then we move on. Hes a very talented kid. He could have achieved what even I didnt or even Wasim [Akram] didnt achieve. He suffered a lot for five years.And my religion also says that if someone has done something and has been punished, he deserves a chance. Salman Butt deserves a chance, Mohammad Asif deserves a chance. They have been through all the punishment they deserve.Can you talk us through the time when Amirs rehabilitation started and he was invited to a camp. A couple of players said, we will not attend this camp because we are not comfortable. Azhar Ali and Mohammad Hafeez were the two who wanted him not to be in the team. We had a lot of meetings, trying to convince Hafeez and Azhar. Not only me but even the top authorities of the board came to talk to them. We had a couple of days of difficulty, but yeah, Azhar and Hafeez accepted him and he went on to the New Zealand tour.Has he been accepted back fully into the set-up? Is he comfortable? I think so. I think people are happy with his performance, with his attitude. Attitude is the key for me when you are a top cricketer, and his attitude toward the game is 100%. I have left the job, so I dont know whats going to happen next, but in the time I spent with the team, hes been accepted. I feel that Salman Butt will also be accepted.Now your second stint as Pakistan coach is also over. There have been difficulties again. The view from the outside is that Pakistani cricketers are averse to some of the things in the modern game, like data analytics. Theres also been talk that you yourself are not very big on things of this kind. Has Pakistan cricket, in some ways, not kept up with the way the game has progressed? I think we have. I think we have done well with the analysis side of the team. But you have to understand that we are a team who are very natural. For example, take Yasir Shah. If you try to coach him too much or try to give him too much information, its going to get lost. We have analysis, we try to give all the necessary information, and we have done it over the years. We have done extremely well in Test matches, if you look back in the last two years. So the information definitely is being passed.I always feel that a certain amount of information needs to be passed and the rest is your natural skill. In our days there was no information. We used to go with natural instinct. I feel cricketers need a certain amount of information definitely, but then it comes down to the individual.There has been virtually no international cricket in Pakistan since 2009. How has that affected players? I think two things have affected Pakistan cricket in the last seven to eight years. One, of course, is cricket not being played in Pakistan. Thats a huge problem. Youngsters dont see their heroes or their top players playing in their own grounds. And on top of that, I think we have forgotten first-class cricket - we play overseas all the time, even our home series are played in Dubai - and we have forgotten where the cricketers come through.In our time, there were a lot of cricketers who were as good as we were but couldnt get the opportunity. Nowadays its hard to replace any cricketer because we dont have anyone coming through. Our academies have been shut for the last seven-eight years. There is no real work going on in the academies. We have about five academies in Pakistan that are half-done or three-quarters completed and its been shut down because there is no eye on it. We are all focusing on Dubai cricket or on the team travelling and away. We will not produce cricketers until we take care of our academies, our first-class cricket.Our first-class cricket has been expanded a lot. There are so many teams playing first-class cricket. I have given my opinion to reduce teams, to look after those academies, bring more people who are qualified, bring them from overseas. We need all of this to keep pace with the world. For the last ten or 15 years, since Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq, there hasnt been a great Pakistan batsman, whereas in the rest of the world it is the era of batting. You see higher averages, brilliant strokeplay. We dont really have that much talent. As I said, there are so many cricketers playing first-class cricket. To get to first-class should be hard work.People are not seeing Younis playing in Lahore or Karachi or Peshawar, so that interest among the younger players is going down. And nowadays cricket is changing, fitness is changing, the dieticians need to be there. There are a lot of things that need to be changed in Pakistan.When you resigned as coach, you reported that some players needed to be sent back to domestic cricket - guys like Umar Akmal, Ahmed Shehzad. But can Pakistan actually afford not play these guys at the highest level? Would the international team stay competitive if players are sent back and not considered for international selection? I think in 1999 or 1998, I was dropped from Pakistan team. I went back and played with the U-19 kids and built a team, which was called the REDCO, an Islamabad-based team. I built a team all around me with the U-19 kids. I played for them for a good half-season, gained my form, my attitude, my hunger towards the game, towards international cricket.So when I said send these guys to first-class cricket, I felt they were not hungry enough. When youre losing, you need to bring younger blood. The guys who have performed at the domestic level, dont they deserve a go?Now having worked so closely with so many Pakistan cricketers in the last few years, you see that there is actually a skill deficit. Is that your biggest concern - that there are a bunch of Pakistani cricketers emerging who will not be able to compete with the rest of the world? Its a scary thought. Talent is there. There are a lot of unknown places with a lot of talent. We need to identify that and that identification will only come by sorting out our system.When Mudassar Nazar was at the National Academy in Lahore, things were moving smoothly. We were producing cricketers who were being pushed into first-class cricket also and gaining a lot of experience from that. Nowadays there is no such thing.Do you see now that beyond Misbah and Younis, there might be a deficit of role models who young cricketers can look up to? You can say that. [In my report] I also asked for a cricket committee who should decide the cricketing matters. What is happening is that we have placed cricketing matters in a non-cricketers hand, and by that we have struggled. Once Misbah goes or Younis goes, we will be struggling for the role models. Heads need to come together and start working on it. Who is your next captain and how long? Whos your next coach and what he brings to the table.Do you see yourself ever returning to a role with the Pakistan team? I think we both need to step away from each other. I think the board also needs a little bit of space from me because Ive spoken out of hurt. I feel things need to change, because if they dont, we will be crying in maybe a couple of years time. So maybe not right now. See how it goes in the next year or so and then decide. But Im always around the game anyway.When youre walking around the streets in Pakistan, do you still see the same passion and love and for the game. Do you see that core still being intact in Pakistan? Yeah, its there but its dying. Its there because thats the only sport where the entire nation comes together. When Pakistan is playing India or any other bigger nation, you dont see cars on the road, you dont see people on the road, shops are closed and all of that. Its still there, but with no cricket in Pakistan and not producing what needs to be produced, it will die away.Watch ESPNcricinfo Talking Cricket at 9.30pm IST on Fridays and the repeat on 12 noon on Sundays on SONYESPN Replica Soccer Jerseys . Cote was eligible to become a free agent Feb. 15. Cote helped running back Jon Cornish run for a league-high 1,813 rushing yards en route to being named the leagues most outstanding player. Cheap Soccer Jerseys Authentic . Ferrer, trying to win his fourth title on Mexican soil, will next play South Africas Kevin Anderson, who eliminated American Sam Querrey,7-6 (2), 6-4. Also Wednesday, Gilles Simon (6) of France beat Donald Young of the United States 6-4, 6-3, Ukraines Alexandr Dolgopolov downed Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-3, 6-4 and Croatias Ivo Karlovic defeated Dudi Sela of Israel 7-6 (4), 6-2. https://www.soccerjerseyschina.us/ . "We have always prided ourselves on the way we play defence. Having two big pieces back is going to be a key for us moving forward for years to come," said Knighthawks head coach Mike Hasen. Cheap Soccer Jerseys . Aaron Harrison scored a 22 points for Kentucky (6-1), which has won four in a row following a Nov. 12 loss to current No. 1 Michigan State. Julius Randle overcame a scoreless first half and added his sixth double-double in as many games with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Fake Soccer Jerseys . Ryan Garbutt had a goal and two assists as Dallas snapped a six-game losing streak with a 5-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night. Though the hunters of England are truly now the hunted, manager Claudio Ranieri has stuck to his pragmatic ways as champions Leicester City begin defence of their title Saturday at KC Stadium against Hull City Tigers to kick off the 2016-17 Premier League season.And that means the first benchmark Ranieri has set for the Foxes is again 40 points despite their incredibly amplified profile following their unlikely title run and upcoming European adventures in their first Champions League appearance.Forty points, forty points, Ranieri responded when asked about the teams goals following Leicester Citys 2-1 loss to FA Cup winners Manchester United in the Community Shield match at Wembley Stadium last Sunday, using his fingers to make the 4 and the 0 for added emphasis as reporters chuckled.Dont laugh. Im starting with the same philosophy and the same humility … what we achieved, it was fantastic. But now, forty points. Forty points is the target, and then we will see how many months less to the end of the season.Leicester City were the story of European football last season, bucking 5,000-to-1 odds to win their first Premier League title in franchise history. The Foxes finished 10 points clear of runners-up Arsenal and became just the sixth team to lift the trophy in the Premier League era, and the first outsiders since Blackburn Rovers in 1995.With the title came the spoils, including their first taste of high-calibre international play during the summer. Leicester City participated in the International Champions Cup and won one of their three matches -- beating Celtic in a penalty shootout before defeats to European powers Paris-St. Germain and Barcelona by a combined 8-2 scoreline.But success always comes with a price. In addition to re-working Jamie Vardys contract for the second time in less than a year, Leicester City continue to sweat out transfer rumours regarding 2016 PFA Player of the Year Riyad Mahrez and lost midfield engine NGolo Kante, the apple of Antonio Contes eye as the new Chelsea manager reshapes the 2015 champions.The good news, though, is Kante is so far the only noticeable departure from this championship-winning side. And the Foxes went about their summer transfer business similar to seasons past -- hoping shrewd under-the-radar moves will reap dividends similar to how Vardy, Mahrez and Kante became the fulcrum of this unlikely champion squad.Nampalys Mendy was brought in from French side Nice with the hope he can provide some of the box-to-box coverage Mahrez did, and Rainieri -- who signed a new four-year contract Wednesday -- is quite familiar with the 24-year-old, having coached him during a brief spell at Monaco.Leicester also added Nigeria international Ahmed Musa, who scored 15 goals in all competitions for CSKA Moscow last season and showed plenty of pace in his appearance off the bench in Sundays 2-1 loss to FA Cup winners Manchester United at Wembley Stadium and scored twice in the loss to Barcelona. Still, Musa likely will start the season behind Shinji Okazaki on the striker depth chart but will have a chance to make his mark as the Foxes juggle doomestic and continental commitments.ddddddddddddVardy scored Leicesters goal at Wembley, showing no signs of resting on the laurels of his 24-goal season in 2015-16 and being one of the few bright spots in Englands disastrous European Championship campaign this summer. While disappointed with the loss to United, newcomer Luis Hernandez thinks the team can use the defeat as incentive to start the season with three points.I think it is important that we have the hurt in the next game Saturday, said Hernandez, who came over on a free transfer from Spains Sporting de Gijon, to LCFC TV. I think it is important to start the season well after last season. I hope we can play well and get the win.I thought the team played a good game and we showed that again this season we can compete with the Premier Leagues big clubs.No one, though, will confuse the Hull City Tigers with one of those big clubs, and they will be hard-pressed to become the first team in the Premier League era to open the season with a victory over the reigning champions and end a 23-match winless squad among those sides (0-4-19). Hull City are back in the top flight after fighting their way to promotion via playoff following their fourth-place finish in the Championship.But there is plenty of drama surrounding the Tigers. Steve Bruce -- the most successful manager in the clubs history -- shockingly resigned last month after the team failed to help itself in the summer transfer window as his relationship with vice-chairman Ehab Allam deteriorated beyond saving.Mohamed Diame, who scored the goal that secured Hulls promotion, opted to leave for Championship side Newcastle United in belief the Magpies will win promotion while the Tigers get relegated for the second time in three seasons. That sentiment has been echoed by oddsmakers, who have made Hull the most likely candidate to finish in the bottom three.The Allam family, who have few supporters among the fan base, is reportedly in negotiations to sell the team, but has yet to finalise any deal with a potential buyer. Caretaker manager Mike Phelan is trying to limit the distractions, but even he doesnt have a deal beyond Saturdays match against the reigning champs.Weve done some homework on Leicester but they are what they are -- theyre the Champions of the Premier League, Phelan told the teams official website after Hull wrapped up their preseason with a 2-1 loss to Italian side Torino in Austria. But were going into this having earned the right to be in the Premier League and we shouldnt forget the work that was put in last season to get there.Both teams came through their respective preseason schedules unscathed with respect to injuries and should field their first-choice starting XIs.The teams last met in the Premier League during the 2014-15 season, when Leicester City took four of a possible six points. Mahrez accounted for the match-winner in a 1-0 victory at KC Stadium before the teams played to a scoreless draw in the return encounter. ' ' '