Former Australian all-rounder cricketer Shane Watson kicked off the offered role after seriously considering the Pakistan Cricket Board’s offer to be the head coach of Pakistan’s men’s cricket team in a limited-over format.
The reasons behind Watson pulling off the race besides being a favorite of PCB for the role are assumed to be his family, coaching roles at Quetta Gladiators and other leagues. He had also signed a deal of commentary in an upcoming edition of IPL 2024.
Watson was in contact with Pakistan’s officials and players with ongoing PSl season 9 where he served as head coach of Quetta Gladiators. Watson had taken over the role after the former coach of Quetta Gladiators Moin Khan, started to serve as the team director in early December. Quetta Gladiators got eliminated from the ongoing PSL 2024 edition after they got all out for just 135 in 18.4 over suffering a huge defeat with Islamabad United by 39 runs.
The full-time commitment with the Pakistan Cricket Team as head coach would had benefit Pakistan in the limited edition format but the deal did not land safely.
The former Australian allrounder had already shown his coaching skills by making Gladiators qualify for the first time in the last 5 seasons. The last time Quetta Gladiators qualified for the playoff was in 2019, they had won the finals too against Peshawar Zalmi with Shane Watson as the player of the tournament.
It is rumored that Pakistan’s cricket board was ready to pay around US $2 million a year for his head coach role. If above rumored amount stands true and Watson not pulling off the race then Watson would have been the highest-paid head coach in the history of Pakistan but for now Shane Watson no longer in race to be Pakistan’s head coach.