PCB appoints Grant Bradburn as head coach of Pakistan

LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Saturday confirmed Grant Bradburn's appointment as the men's national team's head coach for two years.

The board also announced that former South Africa cricketer Andrew Puttick has also signed a two-year-long contract as the batting coach of the men's side while strength and conditioning coach Drikus Saaiman and physiotherapist Cliffe Deacon will continue to work in their roles.

Kiwi Bradburn served as the head coach of the side during the recently-concluded home series against New Zealand on consultancy basis. He is well-versed about the strengths and challenges of the national side having previously served as the fielding coach from 2018 till 2020 before he moved to the National Cricket Academy to work on development of coaches.

Prior to his roles in Pakistan, Bradburn, a former New Zealand cricketer, worked as the head coach of Scotland men's side.

"It is a great honour for me to work with the highly talented and skilful side like Pakistan as a head coach. We have been working hard on raising our game and are eager to showcase our growing skills," Bradburn said in a PCB release.

The Pakistan team management has also unveiled a playing style with which it will approach the 2023 ODI World Cup.

"The style branded as 'The Pakistan Way' will see the team approach the One-Day Internationals in the build-up and during the mega-event with positive and bold tactics and attacking strategies," the release said.

Elaborating on the approach, recently-appointed team director Mickey Arthur said: "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," Arthur added.

To achieve on-field success, the team management will emphasise 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 scheduled to feature in a three-match ODI series against Afghanistan before the 50-over ACC Asia Cup and the national side will use these opportunities to test their potential, experiment with bench strength and fine-tune the side ahead of the global event.