Pakistan Cricket at crossroads after shock defeat at Pindi

KARACHI:

Bangladesh cricket team's stunning ten-wicket Test victory at Rawalpindi on Sunday yet again lays bare the many chinks in Pakistan Cricket's armour. Moreover, it belies the lofty claims of the incumbent Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Mohsin Naqvi of having carried out a major surgery in national cricket following the team's abysmal show in the T20 World Cup, held in the USA and the West Indies last June.

To say that the defeat is a 'new low' for Pakistan Cricket is to grossly understate things to be honest. In fact, this 'new low' phrase has become quite synonymous with the Greenshirts for their uncanny ability to surprise their fans each time by coming up with a bigger disaster. For the knowledgeable critics and experts, Pakistan Cricket has long been in need of an overhaul, certainly not the cosmetic one undertaken by Mr Naqvi recently.

The currently shambolic state of Pakistan Cricket can be blamed on so many factors including flat pitches, poor domestic structure, lack of discipline among the players and officials, inconsistent selection policies, incompetent coaches etc. However, nothing has hurt the game more than the ad hocism that has been prevalent in Pakistan Cricket since 1998. Hand-picked favourites of the respective ruling regimes in the country have taken turns as PCB chairmen over the past two and a half decades to 'mismanage' the game in their own clueless manner.

It is ironical, indeed, that the game that literally unites the entire Pakistan and is a huge passion with people has had no former cricketer, barring Ramiz Raja in 2022, or a technocrat heading the cricket board since 1998. Instead, we have had a military general, a nephrologist, a former ambassador, a political analyst, a sugar baron and an interior minister holding the reins at the PCB during this turbulent period.

It is little wonder then that for almost a decade, Pakistan have not featured among the six top nations in the ICC rankings. In fact, it barely manages to keep afloat at the seventh spot where Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Ireland and the others constantly threaten its position by closing the gap with each passing year.

"The ad hoc in the PCB has defamed Pakistan across the world and whatever has been happening these days is simply shameful," says former PCB chief Arif Ali Khan Abbasi who held the position twice during the 1980s and 90s.

"When the PCB had a general body, an executive council and an honorary treasurer, it was earning success. Name any tournament which Pakistan could not win in the 90s with that system. Among top 20 players of the world, 11 were from Pakistan," says Abbasi who ran the Board efficiently and with aplomb. "Was that a better system or the ad hoc that exists now?"

Most people today will find it hard to believe that Pakistan staged two cricket World Cups at home, in 1987 and again in 1996, that too in joint collaboration with India and Sri Lanka.

"Would you believe the PCB only had 16 employees at the time when we staged the two World Cups?" asks Abbasi. "Today, the cricket board have over 600 employees but look at the pathetic state the game is in."

On the face of it, current chairman Naqvi has appeared to be a busy man, bringing in the finances, revamping the stadia, taking stop-gap measures, appointing new selectors besides talking big. However, his cricketing judgement, or the lack of it, can be gauged by the recent appointment of former captain Waqar Younis as his advisor.

Even a layman would know that the three-time failed national team coach who held grudges and destroyed careers of quite a few players while refusing to look beyond his nose, is the worst possible candidate for the job. It was evident from his horrible decision to axe the country's most gifted spinner Abrar Ahmed from the Pakistan squad for the first Test against Bangladesh. Just how that decision has backfired is for everyone to see. Former Pakistan wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal lashed out at the Pakistan management for leaving out Abrar in the Pindi Test. "Australia won't play without Nathan Lyon and India won't drop Ravindra Jadeja or Ravichandran Ashwin from their XI for the home tests. So how can we afford to drop a fine spinner like Abrar here?" questioned Akmal. It was in the1999 World Cup in England that Bangladesh had 'shocked' Pakistan to register their first overseas ODI win. Pakistan, then fielding perhaps their strongest ever World Cup squad under Wasim Akram, fell 62 runs short.

The defeat triggered a storm amid charges of match-fixing and the famous 'Justice Qayyum inquiry' was launched to probe the ignominious defeat. On Sunday, Bangladesh stunned Pakistan by ten wickets at Pindi to register their first ever Test win against them.Will there be another inquiry to unearth what really transpired at Pindi?.