One wonders what to call it — shocking, intriguing, unfair, offending, or simply insulting. Not a single Pakistani player — male or female — has been found fit enough to feature among any of the three ICC Teams of the Decade. The announcement of the teams, by the ICC governing body on Sunday, is a part of ICC Awards — a programme aimed at celebrating outstanding performers and moments from the past ten years of international cricket.
In sheer contrast to the case with Pakistan, nine of the 33 places in the three men’s teams have gone to India, along with the captaincy of all three. While MS Dhoni has been named the captain of ODI and T20I teams, Virat Kohli has been picked up as the Test team skipper — something that underlines the great influence the cash-rich BCCI enjoys in the world of cricket.
The only other full members of the ICC that have been left out, along with Pakistan, are Zimbabwe and Ireland. Just imagine that even Afghanistan, the Baby of Cricket, has had its one player, leg-spinner Rashid Khan, in the T20I teams — as also Bangladesh which sees its one player, all-rounder Shakib al Hasan, making it to the ODI team. Pertinent to mention here that Bangladesh was elected by ICC as its full member nearly half a decade after Pakistan got the same membership.
Pretty intriguingly, talented batsman Babar Azam — who currently ranks at 2nd in T20Is, 3rd in ODIs and 5th in Tests — has failed to inspire the voting academy that has selected the three teams. And Younus Khan — who’s among only 13 players of the world to have scored more than 10,000 runs in Tests — has not done good enough to feature among those honoured. From 2010 to 2017, Khan scored 4,839 runs at an average of 54.37 in 56 Tests, blasting 18 centuries and 248 as his highest.
Sana Mir is one more notable dropout — though from among the female cricketers. Having retired from international cricket in April this year, Mir — a former skipper — remains the highest wicket-taking off-spinner among international women cricketers in a career spanning 15 years. She has led Pakistan to two Asiad golds and is among a very few women cricketers to have taken 100 wickets and scored 1,000 runs in ODIs.
It’s true that Team Pakistan’s performance over the last many years has been dismal, but certainly not to the extent of being left out of the reckoning. The ICC must note that sports is supposed to be talent-bound and bias-free.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 27th, 2020.
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