Islamabad [Pakistan], May 13 : Former New Zealand international Grant Bradburn has been named as the new head coach of the Pakistan men's team.
Bradburn is not new to the Pakistan set-up, having served as the head coach on a consultancy basis during the recently concluded series against New Zealand. He will lead the side for the next two years.
With Bradburn's support Pakistan levelled the T20I series 2-2 and defeated New Zealand 4-1 in the ODI series, briefly holding the No.1 spot in the ICC Men's ODI team rankings. Although they lost it after losing the final ODI, they are just 2 points behind Australia, who are in the top spot.
Bradburn was also Pakistan's fielding coach from 2018 to 2020 and then moved to the National Cricket Academy to work on the coach's development. He has also coached the Scotland men's team until 2017 and the New Zealand A and U19 sides before that.
"It is a great honour for me to work with the highly talented and skilful side like Pakistan as a head coach," said Bradburn after his appointment as quoted by ICC.
"We have been working hard on our raising our game and are eager to showcase our growing skills. Mickey Arthur and I are excited to support, challenge and develop our players. The New Zealand series has been valuable to get game time and create clarity of roles, culture and brand to win."
"We have raised the bar of expectation and we will keep challenging our players. The process has started and our players are agreeing to take these challenges head-on. ODI cricket has evolved and our agreed expectations are aligned to being the best in the world. We have mutually agreed with our players they are capable of higher team scores, even when setting totals. There has been immediate positive signs during this series and this group of players is determined to continually improve, to put ourselves into contention to win major events," concluded the coach.
With the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup less than six months away, Pakistan is gearing up for the mega tournament with a new approach dubbed as The Pakistan Way.
Team Director Mickey Arthur elaborated on the new playing style: "If a team wins without a culture, without a brand or without a style, it may work for a short period but will eventually fall. If a team is losing with a culture, a brand and its own style, then it is moving towards the right direction."
"So how do we achieve The Pakistan Way? We achieve this by winning while having our own culture, our own brand of cricket and our own style. We will not be satisfied with wins without that culture in the team. Pakistan as a nation is proud of its identity, culture and style. I love Pakistan and Pakistan cricket; I want to leave behind a legacy as a director where the rest of the world says we want to play The Pakistan Way."
"To achieve the on-field success, the team management will emphasis on the importance of building a culture where a player's success is enjoyed by everyone and creating an inclusive environment where anyone can speak up at any time and everyone is treated equally eventually resulting in achieving collective goals as a nation and team."
Pakistan are next slated to play a three-match ODI series against Afghstan, followed by the 50-over Asia Cup as a part of their preparation for the World Cup, which will be held in India from October-November this year.
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