Just a couple of days after the Pakistan Cricket Board decided against appointing Waqar Younis as the bowling coach, former captain Wasim Akram said he was "available" for the job but would not go out of his way to get it.
"I'm really sick of this question. Everybody asks me why I am not training the Pakistan team. Now I cannot go to the PCB and beg them to give me a job. I'm available, they have to call me. And nobody has called me yet," Akram said.
"I got a letter from the PCB asking if I had time to train in the academy they'll pay me $500 a day but I didn't reply because I didn't have time then," Akram, 39, was quoted as saying in a local daily on Saturday.
Akram, who took 502 one-day and 414 Test wickets, continued: "If they (PCB) want me to work for them, they only have to ask me. I'll never call Shoaib Akhtar and (Mohammad) Sami. I'm always ready to help.
"I have no idea (what could possibly be the reason for the PCB not contacting me). I haven't been to PCB for years. I think to be a cricketer or a sportsman, you have to be a politician as well and I think I've become a politician eventually."
{{/usCountry}}"I have no idea (what could possibly be the reason for the PCB not contacting me). I haven't been to PCB for years. I think to be a cricketer or a sportsman, you have to be a politician as well and I think I've become a politician eventually."
{{/usCountry}}PCB's efforts to appoint Younis as bowling coach came a cropper when the establishment refused to give the former fast bowler a long-term contract.
An upset Younis reportedly told a local Urdu daily that had he been a "white skin", he would have secured a four-year contract.
Akram also expressed his displeasure over people questioning his guidance to Indian seamer Irfan Pathan.
Pathan's excellent progress at the highest level has been linked to Akram's coaching with critics accusing him of being anti-Pakistani. The Lahore High Court recently dismissed a petition in this regard.