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Pakistan captain Younis Khan feels the added burden of captaincy may have affected his batting but has promised a return to form in the remaining two matches of the one-day series against Australia in UAE.

Younis, who celebrated his ascent to captaincy in February by scoring a match-saving 313 against Sri Lanka in the first Test in Karachi, has completely flopped in the first three ODIs against Australia in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

He has just scored 27 runs in the three games and Pakistan is trailing the series 1-2 against the Australians.

"May be it's the captaincy that's affecting my performance," he said on Wednesday. "It could have affected my concentration but I'm sure the runs will come soon," he added.

Younis, 31, is the backbone of the Pakistani batting line in the absence of Mohammad Yousuf, who was blacklisted by Pakistan after he switched to the rebel Indian Cricket League last year. (ray of light for Mohammad Yousuf...read more)

The skipper is not the only senior batsman in the Pakistan team to have struggled against the Australians in the series. Former captain Shoaib Malik and the current vice-captain Misbah-ul-Haq are also going through a bad patch.

When asked why he is against the idea of dropping either Misbah or Malik, Younis made it clear that he is not in favour of any such move.

"I haven't accepted captaincy to drop players like Misbah and Malik," he said. "If I do that the entire Pakistan will start complaining. If I drop Misbah, they will say I have gotten rid of the vice-captain and if I drop Malik they will stay that first he took away the captaincy from him and now a place in the team."

Younis said that he is confident that Malik and Misbah will soon playing the big knocks that Pakistan is urgently seeking from its seniors pros.

"I scored a couple of ducks in Bangladesh last year and then scored a century. I'm sure that similarly, Malik and Misbah will also regain their form."

Younis stressed that his batsmen will have to learn to play well under pressure. "We lost the last match (against) Australia because our batsmen were unable to bat under pressure," he said.

Meanwhile, the performance of Pakistan's coaching staff headed by Intikhab Alam is being questioned in the wake of a series of defeats against Sri Lanka at home and Australia in the UAE.

Media reports Wednesday raised a big question mark on the justification of hiring two coaches -- Alam and Aaquib Javed (bowling coach) - after the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) sacked Australian Geoff Lawson last year on the grounds that he was too expensive and was not meeting targets.

"PCB chief Ijaz Butt sacked Lawson saying that he was too expensive. But now he has hired two coaches, who are even more expensive than Lawson and are a burden on the board that is facing a financial crunch," said a report in one of the mainstream Urdu dailies Wednesday.

Lawson was receiving a salary of around Pakistani Rs.14 million a year and other perks. The former Australia pacer was sacked after Butt took over last fall. Butt hired Alam, a former Pakistan captain, as the new coach at a lower salary.

The PCB chief then appointed Aaquib as an assistant coach. Together the two receive combined salaries of around Pakistani Rs.11 million per annum but their perks and other expenses make them more expensive than Lawson, said the report.

It added that the Alam-Javed team has failed to deliver so far as Pakistan's winning ratio has gone down to 45 percent compared to 80 percent under Lawson. Under Alam, Pakistan have lost a one-day series against Sri Lanka at home and is down 1-2 against Australia in the ongoing series in UAE.

Though, one feels that it may be a bit premature to take Alam and his team to task, after all, they are only one and a half series old, cricket in the sub-continent is aking to religion, and the fans expect instant results! 

File Photograph Copyright: Bilal Mirza