BOB WOOLMER, the former England batsman, has been appointed coach of Pakistan on a three-year contract. At present the ICC high performance manager, Woolmer has been lured into another international role through a highly lucrative offer and the realisation that he would be unlikely to succeed Duncan Fletcher as England coach.
“Duncan has done an excellent job and they have been playing very well, so there was not any opportunity. Pakistan have been pushing me to work for them for some time,” he said.
Woolmer earned a reputation as an innovative coach of South Africa and, after a second spell with Warwickshire, returned to his home in Cape Town two years ago. Although he was on the short list for the position of West Indies coach last year, he felt that coaching England would be the one job he would still like to do. Now 56, he sees his new position as his last big role in the game.
Woolmer succeeds Javed Miandad in Pakistan. He travels there on July 2 to meet their players and will take charge of the team initially for the Asia Cup on July 16. Series against Sri Lanka, Holland, England and Australia will follow. He will remain as coach until the end of the World Cup in 2007. “Coaching is what I do best and this gives me an opportunity in a stimulating environment,” he said. “This kind of job will not be offered to me when I am 60.”
Woolmer will give up his ICC role next month. Miandad, the great former Pakistan batsman, is understood to be upset at not continuing as his country’s coach. Woolmer’s immediate task will be to bring discipline to a highly talented, if erratic, collection of cricketers. “My mother and father taught me Urdu when I was a boy and I even lived in Karachi for a short while,” he added.