Ok, so Akhtar is being considered as a Chief Selector, to replace Misbah, yes?
My immediate gut reaction is that Akhtar will be terrible in any admin role given to him, based on his public statements. So let's contrast this to Misbah's selection policies.
Misbah, for all his plans, has a consistent idea of what he wants his side to be I.e. a core of (very) experienced players backed by select young promising quicks. Any holes in the squad are firstly addressed by seasoned domestic performers (e.g. Kashif Bhatti) or if no options are available, gambling on a young batsmen ( Haider Ali). His tactics, like every Pakistani coach before him are driven by safe/average batting backed by overperforming bowlers. Unfortunately those tactics do not consistently work against the best teams, with their incredible hitters. So, whilst Misbah has a clear idea of what he wants, his ideas themselves are fundamentally flawed.
So what's Akhtar's selection theme? Brave, daring cricketers with 'attitude' and 'desire. He's basically cricket's version of the 'Proper football man', where tactics, team composition apparently take a backseat to the mental side.
However, whilst that does sound bad, I can see Shoaib using, say the upcoming National T20 cup performances as a metric to give opportunities to 'attacking batsmen' for the Zim series. Now, whilst we all hope that is an Abdullah Shafique, a Zeeshan Malik or a Mohammad Haris, it could may well be an Awais Zia or a Khurram Manzoor? It's Shoaib, do you just can't tell.
What I do believe is, Akhtar will give opportunities to 3-4 actual real attacking batsmen in his tenure. It's to be seen how long he sticks to them.
I'd prefer to see him coaching either at the HPC or with the PCT itself.
@Pacy_with_wisdom has previously mentioned that Shoaib could be a good bowling coach relative to Waqar. I always though he, aside from the 'phasst' aspect, was a very intelligent bowler in setting batsmen up. So he can defo coach that. But does he have the technical knowledge to coach wrist positions, crease positions and bowling action adjustments? Again, who knows?
