Former Pakistan pacer who took 5 wickets in IND vs PAK WC 2011 semifinal got major role in PCB

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) reportedly takes a major step to reform their women's cricket team, which performed poorly during the recently concluded ICC Women's World Cup 2025, where India emerged as the champion for the first time ever.

On the other hand, Pakistan Women's Cricket concluded their campaign as the 8th team in the points table of the 8-team tournament. They had to take an exit from the competition without winning any matches. These kinds of stats are enough for PCB officials to get worried about.

According to reports, PCB has appointed a former Pakistan international as a consultant of the Pakistan Women's Cricket Team. On November 7th, it was informed that PCB appointed Wahab Riaz as a consultant for the Pakistan women's team. Riaz was a former Pakistan pacer bowler and also a former chief selector of the Pakistan national cricket team from November 2023 to July 2024.

Read More: Former World Cup winner likely to replace Ajit Agarkar as chairman of the BCCI selection committee

Former Pakistan international Wahab Riaz appointed as a consultant in PCB

During his career as an active cricket player, he gained a fair amount of success. One of his memorable bowling spells was in the 2011 World Cup semifinal, during the India vs. Pakistan match at Mohali. In that match Riaz picked up 5 wickets. Virendra Sehwag, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, and Zaheer Khan lost their wickets against Wahab. But his bowling efforts went in vain as India successfully defended their first innings 260-run and moved into the final to claim the trophy. And Pakistan, after getting defeated by the archrival,crashed out of the title race.

The former pacer played 27 Test matches for Pakistan to take 83 wickets in total. Though most of his notable performances came from the limited overs cricket. In ODIs, the Lahore-born bagged 120 wickets in 91 matches and got 34 wickets in 36 Twenty20 Internationals.