Misbah steps down as Pakistan chief selector, to remain head coach
Karachi: Misbah-ul-Haq has decided to step down as Pakistan chief selector to focus more on his head coach role with the national cricket team.
Misbah told a media briefing in Lahore on Wednesday that he has informed the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) that he would be stepping down as chief selector on November 30.
He had taken the dual role of the chief selector and head coach in September last year.
"I will select the squad for the coming series against Zimbabwe but after that, I just want to focus on my work as head coach," he said.
Misbah insisted that he had not quit as chief selector because of pressure from the board or any quarter.
"No it is purely my own personal decision and I took it because I think it is not easy doing two high-profile jobs at one time. I want to give my best as head coach of the national team.
"Whoever is appointed as chief selector, I will fully cooperate with him and work to take the Pakistan team into the top three of every format," Misbah said.
The former captain also made it clear that his was a pure cricket decision and had nothing to do with his meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan last month when he and senior players, Azhar Ali and Muhammad Hafeez, raised the issue of departmental teams being closed down in domestic cricket.
The PCB made it clear it was not happy with Misbah and the two other players going directly to meet the PM to discuss what was a policy decision of the board.
"If that meeting was the reason for my stepping down as chief selector then I think I would have also lost my head coach position," Misbah said.
PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani and CEO Wasim Khan recently met with Misbah and Azhar and gave them a dressing down and cautioned them not to make the mistake of directly seeking meetings with the PM who is also the patron in chief of the board.
Misbah said with time one learns whether a decision is right or wrong.
"When I accepted both positions I thought I could manage it but with time I think it is better for me to focus on one job."
He also said that he was satisfied that in his one year the national team had shown some development and some good young players had come up.
"As head coach now my focus is that we as a team break into the top three of every format and obviously we also have the ICC World Cups coming up over the next three years so that is something we have to start preparing."
Misbah was appointed head coach and chief selector after the PCB released Mickey Arthur and his support staff following Pakistan's failure to make the World Cup semi-finals.
Interestingly, former fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar recently told a YouTube channel that he was in discussions with the board for the chief selector's position.
But the board denied it had offered Shoaib any position and said they were not planning to replace Misbah as chief selector.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Teachers start relay hunger strike to protest job loss, police action
Kolkata (PTI): A section of teachers who lost their jobs following a Supreme Court judgment which held that the whole appointment process was tainted, on Thursday began a relay hunger strike outside the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) office in protest over the issue.
Joining the protesters, BJP MP Abhijit Gangopadhyay who is a former judge of the Calcutta High Court, blamed the state administration and its wings for their plight.
The teachers and other staff who lost their jobs said that they were also protesting police action against their compatriots at the district inspector (DI) of schools' office at Kasba in south Kolkata on Wednesday.
"We started a relay hunger strike agitation with one teacher at the beginning and will soon chalk out further programme to protest the issue," one of the protesters told reporters outside the SSC office at Salt Lake here.
The agitating teachers have been holding a sit-in outside the SSC office building 'Acharya Sadan' since Wednesday night to protest the loss of jobs and police action against their compatriots.
The protesters alleged they were subjected to baton-charge and were even kicked and shoved around by law enforcement personnel during their agitation outside the DI office, situated beside Kasba police station of the Kolkata Police.
Noting that the police have lodged cases against the protesting teachers over Wednesday's protest at Kasba, Gangopadhyay said that this should not have been done.
"Cases have been lodged against innocent teachers who lost their jobs for the illegal acts of others," the BJP MP told reporters.
Maintaining that he had not gone to meet Education Minister Bratya Basu on Wednesday in protest against the police action, he said that the BJP leadership was with him in his decision.
Gangopadhyay said that he, along with former Rajya Sabha MP Rupa Ganguly, came to the protest site at Acharya Sadan to express solidarity with the teachers and other staff who lost their jobs.
Gangopadhyay, as a judge of the Calcutta High Court, had ordered a CBI investigation in November 2021 into alleged irregularities in the recruitment process.
He had also ordered the termination of more than 25,000 jobs of teaching and non-teaching staff in West Bengal government-run and -aided schools after finding irregularities in the process.
This order was upheld by a division bench of the high court and thereafter by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court on April 3 upheld a 2024 Calcutta High Court judgment annulling the recruitment of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff appointed through a recruitment drive by SSC in 2016, terming the entire selection process "vitiated and tainted".
Those who were rendered jobless claimed that the reason behind their plight was the inability of the SSC to differentiate between the candidates who secured employment through fraudulent means and those who did not.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee and some others, who held positions in the state's SSC when the irregularities in the recruitment process took place.
_vb_60.webp)
