Head coach Moin Khan heart broken after Quetta Gladiators crash out

Quetta Gladiators bowed of the Pakistan Super League as they lost the first eliminator against Peshawar Zalmi by just one run. The loss has not gone well with their head coach Moin Khan who has lamented the absence of their key foreign players the reason behind the loss.

The Gladiators were without the services of their two key batsmen Shane Watson and Kevin Pietersen as the duo of refused to travel to Pakistan for the final leg of the tournament. Watson was the highest run-getter for Quetta with 319 runs in 10 matches.

While Kevin Pietersen didn’t induce any such major effect, but he certainly could have made a difference with his vast experience.

Quetta needed 25 runs off the final six deliveries of the match which was later brought down to 3 runs off the final ball courtesy some exceptional hitting by Anwar Ali.

However, they were unable to get past the line and crashed out of the tournament.

Head coach of the Gladiators, Moin Khan feels that the players should not be allowed to refuse to travel to Pakistan as it sends a wrong message.

He said:

 “We, in the coming season, should only pick players who have the consent to visit Pakistan. We do not need to push for individuality as our league has now become a bigger brand and now we need to go on and think about the teams. So going into the future, we don’t need to get these players who don’t want to come to Pakistan. In fact, this is hurting Pakistan as it is sending a negative signal and affects our country’s image as well.”

“Their refusal on visiting Pakistan sends a false impression that we are an unsafe country, but I am pretty sure we are a safe country and they should come here and play. I personally feel we eventually shouldn’t be dependent on these players. If somebody respects Pakistan and the image of the country, he should come and play this league.” 

Moin also believes his players are not getting enough rest ahead of the important matches affected the result.

“[I am] feeling hurt as a head coach. It was a good match in terms of entertainment but we made mistakes and a few unnecessary shots were played. But overall your combination is broken…it happens because Shane Watson didn’t come despite committing and about KP we always knew he wouldn’t be coming to Pakistan. So the problem is very obvious and otherwise we are not really choking because we were without our right combination and our strength was broken so we were nowhere.”

“Even today, our one overseas player – Thisara Perera – he joined us at a time when we were making our way to the ground and he landed in Lahore after three connections from Colombo to Dubai to Karachi to Lahore. Tom [Kohler-Cadmore] and Mahmudullah landed earlier this morning. No matter how big a player you are, your body needs rest. We had discussed in our team meeting that we don’t need to depend on our overseas players, and have to show our commitment and take responsibility as a team. Winning and losing is a part of the game but I am happy that we still managed to stretch the game in the end and we had a close finish.”

Here’s the news feed:

PSL 2018: Thisara Perera and Mahmudullah Riyad replace Shane Watson, Kevin Pietersen

International players excited about playing in the Pakistan leg of PSL