The former Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq aims to "maximise" the potential of players competing in the domestic circuit to give them the best possible opportunity to represent the country in all three formats of the sport.
Misbah has been appointed as the mentor of Wolves for the Champions Cup and is one of the four others who will be mentoring their respective teams in the newly-designed tournament.
"My thinking is you need to try and maximise a player's potential," Misbah said at a press conference on Friday. "If a player is well-equipped and technically good, he can play all formats. We have to look at how he manages his fitness and potential, and not have any pre-conceived notions about any player. Then we can look at which player specifically fits into our team. That doesn't mean we limit a player's ceiling. As mentor and coach, we need to explore their potential to the full."
Misbah mentioned that efforts should be put into reducing "the gap between domestic and international cricket" so that the domestic players could take to international cricket like fish to water.
"The vision is to reduce the gap between domestic and international cricket. I feel it and players feel it too. When I came to the international side, it took three to four years to believe that I belonged to international cricket. The vision of the mentors is to prepare the players to raise them to that level, so they adjust with it. This requires a lot of hard work, and it will only happen if we do it."
Among the five mentors named, only Sarfaraz Ahmed and Shoaib Malik will be seen playing in the Champions Cup. While Sarfaraz is expected to feature in the one-day cup, Malik is planning to play a few games, most likely in the T20 format of the competition.
"As a mentor, my role goes beyond just providing guidance from the dugout," Malik, the mentor of the Stallions, said in a statement released by the PCB. "I will also take to the field in select matches to impart my first-hand knowledge and experience. This will enable our upcoming cricketers to refine their skills and elevate their game, ultimately supporting the Pakistan Cricket Board's efforts to bridge the gap between domestic and international cricket."
