No signs of rescue after Multan disaster

Cricket team's winless run of 11 matches is alarming to say the least

More defeats, more misery! That's the story of Pakistan Cricket today.

On Friday, the ignominious innings and 47-run defeat against England at Multan further compounded the national team's woes.

Pakistan have not won a home Test match since 2022, a winless run of 11 matches which is alarming to say the least. It is the same story in the ODIs and the T20s as well, where the team has failed to make an impact, the embarrassing first round exit at the T20 World Cup in June pretty much summing up the morbid state of the game in the country.

To put it succinctly, Pakistan Cricket has gotten into a deep hole with no hopes of rescue in sight.

However, whether there have been efforts to sincerely and logically address the issues afflicting Pakistan Cricket is a matter of serious debate really.

Quite inexplicably, the same set of players who have repeatedly let the team down of late with their poor form and lack of application have been persisted with by the selectors and backed by the team's coaches.

Nearly all the front-ranking national team players, including Abdullah Shafique, Saim Ayub, Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, Saud Shakeel, Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah have performed well below their standards for the past year or so but have managed to retain their places in the team without much justification.

Everywhere around the world, it is a simple formula to rest the struggling players and replace them with the star performers of domestic cricket. However, that has not happened and hence the string of defeats at home.

It is amazing, though, that while the faltering playing eleven has remained a constant in the entire equation, as many as four PCB chairmen, four captains, six head coaches, and countless selectors have switched positions, which speaks volumes of the chaos prevalent in the ranks.

Unfortunately, the tall claims made by the PCB chairman of carrying out a major surgery to resurrect Pakistan Cricket have also not come to fruition despite failures and reports of rifts within the team.

And it is not as if the talent has dried up.

Brilliant youngsters such as Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Hurraira, Tayyab Tahir, Qasim Akram, Haseebullah, Rohail Nazeer, Mohammad Zeeshan, Mehran Mumtaz, Zahid Mahmood, Mohammad Hasnain and others have been languishing at the sidelines despite nudging the selectors on a regular basis.

Knowledgeable critics and former players have for long stressed on the PCB and its think tank to assess the causes of recent home defeats but to no avail.

Former England skipper Nasser Hussain, who graced the Multan Test as an expert, was however quick to draw his conclusions. Speaking on the SKY TV, Hussain said the contrast between the team's performance in the first and the second innings of the six Test matches lost at home clearly indicates the players are just not able to sustain the pressure of batting second, where they are either required to win the match or save it.

"The matter of Pakistan team not able to measure up in the second innings is indicative of a psychological problem," said Hussain. "I can see there is a lot of talent in these boys, the pitch does not hold any demons either and they have been playing in these home conditions all their lives. So clearly, there are psychological problems that are affecting the team."

It is a fair assessment of the Pakistan team's woes, indeed.

The psychological problems Hussain has highlighted stem from the structural issues as well as the frequent changes in the team management, the captains and the coaches that have left the players confused and their nerves brittle.

"Name me one sporting environment, team or a business that does well with constant change behind the scenes, constant changes in chairman of selectors, chief executives, captains, coaches," said Hussain.

"If there's constant changes, there's constant messages that are coming in that are different, the consistency that was always lacking in Pakistan cricket goes even more out of the window. It is imperative that the structural issues in your cricket is addressed to put the game back on track," he observed.

On Friday, yet another band of selectors were named by the PCB. But whether there will be any changes in the Pakistan playing eleven for the second Test remains to be seen.