Changes in cricket set-up

Heads were bound to roll — after Pakistan’s poor show in the ICC World Cup 2023. Babar Azam has had to step down from the captaincy in all three formats of the game — replaced by Shan Masood in Tests and Shaheen Shah Afridi in T20Is, with the ODI captain yet unnamed. Coaching and management personnel have also been reshuffled. Former Test captain Mohammad Hafeez has come in as the team director while Wahab Riaz, also the caretaker sports minister in the province of Punjab, has been appointed chief selector. Former batting great Younus Khan may also be given some responsibility. And while Morne Morkel has already resigned as the team’s bowling coach, there have been reports of team director Mickey Arthur and head coach Grant Bradburn having been shown the door; however, PCB says that there has just been change in the portfolio of the coaching staff.

Changes do follow performances like the one we put on in the world’s most prestigious cricket competition, even losing to Afghanistan in the league game and failing to qualify for the semifinal stage. But, will the changes we have made after the World Cup debacle make a difference? By merely reshuffling the management and coaching staff, will we be able to lift the team’s performance? Good managers and coaches do have their importance, but what brings sustained change in players’ performance is the work done on the grassroots. There is need to work on the domestic structure of the game in the country. It’s unfortunate that we have yet to decide on whether we should have departmental cricket in the domestic circuit or the regional cricket or a combination of both. School and college cricket has also vanished. The cricket board too has long been functioning on ad hoc basis, and is mostly headed by political appointees. Unless we focus on improving the domestic cricket structure, we will never be able to abandon the tag of being unpredictable.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 17^th, 2023.

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