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Karachi, Jan 1: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has hired the services of former England captain Geoffrey Boycott at a hair-raising £2,000(Rs 180,000) per day contract.

Boycott's assignment to coach the teenage budding youngsters at Lahore's National Cricket Academy will start from Feb 5, highly placed sources said.

For his 15-day stay in Lahore, Boycott, who was found guiltyby a French court for assaulting his girlfriend, will be paid £30,000(Rs 2.70 million).

Additionally, the PCB will give business class travel facilities to Boycott besides accommodation in a five-star hotel. The additional expenses are expected to cost the PCB Rs 250,000.

The sources said the terms and conditions of the contract were discussed and finalized when Boycott was reporting the recently concluded England-Pakistan series for a British Radio channel.

According to information, Boycott had initially demanded £3,000 per day. But he finally agreed on £2,000 after Ramiz Raja, Boycott's fellow commentator and member of the PCB advisory council, negotiated on behalf of the PCB.

Boycott is one of the few foreigners the PCB is contemplating to hire to run its cricket academy. Former South African off- spinner Pat Symcox is also said to be in negotiating stages with the board.

"If Symcox agrees, he will be awarded a handsome contract though the amount may not be as high as that of Boycott," sources said.

A South African curator is also said to be in contact with the PCB to prepare pitches countrywide. Only last year, the PCB engaged Tony Greig at a reported amount of $10,000 for unknown services.

Boycott has always been in the reckoning of the present cricket setup with some of the officials having pushed his case to replace Intikhab Alam as coach last year. Intikhab was eventually replaced by Javed Miandad who now has been given the mandate until the World Cup in 2003.

Ironically, when Intikhab was released of his two-month contract, he was paid $10,000 - a far lesser amount as compared to Boycott considering the time the former Pakistan captain spent with the team and at a time when the cricket administration was in complete chaos with rapid changes at the top.

Boycott's expected contract is also intriguing in the background that only a couple of years back, the PCB had breached its promise with Mushtaq Mohammad and refused to increase his monthly stipend as team coach. Mushtaq was being paid a paltry $1,000 per month.

Boycott's appointment also lacks logic and wisdom because he would be coaching youngsters for whom English language and that too with a Yorkshire ascent would be hard to understand.

In addition to this, Boycott's coaching experience is virtually nil. So much so, he has never been employed as a coach by his own county (Yorkshire) for whom he played for nearly two decades, what to talk about coaching any another county or country.

The other interesting point to be emphasised is what magical tips Boycott would pass on to the youngsters in 15 days which Pakistan's own stalwarts like Hanif Mohammad, Zaheer Abbas, Abdul Qadir, Javed Miandad, Mushtaq Mohammad, Wasim Raja, Sarfaraz Nawaz etc cannot convey.

The investment on Boycott is nothing but throwing precious foreign exchange into deep well which can be better utilized. The least the PCB can do with Rs 2.70 million is to engage their own former Test cricketers to assist the youngsters.(£1 = Rs 90)

© The Dawn