Geoff Lawson has been removed as coach of Pakistan with immediate effect. He will be given three months advance salary.

Lawson had a meeting with the PCB chairman, Ijaz Butt, earlier this afternoon, at which it was decided that a decision would be given to him tomorrow. "Geoff Lawson has been removed as coach of Pakistan," PCB spokesman Raza Rashid told Cricinfo. "As per his clause he has been given three months' salary."

This news comes a day after Butt announced that he had no grudge against Lawson and that the PCB would continue to support him through the rest of his contract period. Butt had also said that Lawson would be given whatever support was needed to help him improve Pakistan's performances on the field.
On October 12, Lawson said he had no plans of stepping down from his post before his two-year term finishes next year. Butt, in the two weeks since he was appointed chairman, had no contact with Lawson until today. On October 18, he had met with Shoaib Malik and the temporary chief selector Saleem Jaffar, but not Lawson. Two days later, Butt publicly announced that Lawson's contract would not be renewed after April 2009.

Lawson was appointed by Butt's predecessor Nasim Ashraf in 2007 on a two-year contract but his impact since then has been sketchy: though Pakistan reached the final of the World Twenty20 in 2007 and won the Kitply Cup this year, they also lost major series at home to South Africa and away to India. They also failed to qualify for the final of the Asia Cup earlier this year.

Lawson had also been the target of intense media criticism almost from the day he arrived in Pakistan.

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