Geoffrey Francis Lawson new cricket coach for Pakistan

July 16: On Sunday Lawson was confirmed to be appointed as coach for Pakistan cricket team. Lawson himself received the news on Sunday from Pakistan cricket board that he will be appointed as a full time coach of the team.

He left behind his own country men Dav Whatmore and Richard Done in the race of the job. Lawson sees it as a challenge to train a highly talented squad there in Pakistan.

Filled with excitement and enthusiasm, Australian fast medium bowler said “when you look at the class of players they have, you just get excited about being involved with them”.

Australian pace bowler, born in New South Wales started his career in 1977 and played his first test against India in 1980. In his career he has represented Australia in 46 test and 79 one day international matches. During his test career he took 180 wickets and contributed a total of 894 runs.

Nicknamed as Henry and known for his aggressive captaincy during his captainship of NSW he kept the philosophy of ‘get on or get out’. He captained New South Wales 40 times since 1988-89 till he got retired in 1991-92. His captainship style has been appreciated a lot in the country and was followed by Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh.

In 1990 he has been awarded the ‘Order of Australia’ for the services done to cricket and in 2002 he received Australian sports medal.

Currently Lawson is working as a commentator and is optometrist by profession. He influenced Pakistan board and players by his positive attitude towards the game and easy going behaviour.

He may land on Lahore in August to train them for twenty-twenty world championship to be held in South Africa in September. This is to be known that Pakistan cricket captain Shoeb Malik backed his appointment.

Before this, Whatmore who had done this job for subcontinent teams of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh was being considered as the possible coach of the team. The post fell vacant following the murder of the Pak coach Bob Woolmer in March during the world-cup.

Reflecting his mood Henry said “I don’t suffer fools and I just don’t put up with the second best. This is already said that his policy has been either getting on or getting out. He accepted Pakistan team’s talent but termed them underachievers.