Pakistan cricket in shambles

Modern cricket has seen the developed teams moving on, whilst we are standing on the tip of redundancy


Dr Nauman Niaz April 13, 2015
The writer is Director Sports of Pakistan Television Corporation

While Pakistan get ready to tour Bangladesh after their prolonged run of poor form and pedestrian performance at the ICC World Cup 2015, nothing seems to have changed: the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is the same and he is backing the same redundant systems, and the same old people who are well-entrenched in the board. We have a head coach who talks heedlessly, displaying his arrogance. Quite often his statements do not correlate with sensible observations. At the same time, a player who wasn’t even part of World Cup plans is now considered mature enough to take over the reins of the One-Day International team.

I wonder how innocent PCB Chairman Shahryar Khan is in this whole scenario. If he wants to ‘rebuild’ Pakistan cricket with the same people, he must really be naive. The World Cup performance should make it clear to those at the helm of affairs in the PCB that they have to come out of this state of denial, they need to learn that they have to reinvent and restructure domestic cricket, and completely transform their approach towards all cricket, particularly the one-day tier and understand the mechanics of the modern game.

Changing players and bringing in new cricketers to take the places vacated may all be very well but who is going to bring in new methods, new ideas and plans? It seems that we may see the same unchanged approach, with no heed being given to triggering a true turnaround. Ironically, Waqar Younis, though he may well have been an outstanding fast-bowler and a competent bowling coach, nonetheless has no administrative nous to institute harmony, to gel the players together and to make them execute plans. I firmly believe that Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal’s failure to play to their potential and their flirtation with indiscipline were a reflection of the powerlessness of the head coach. He failed to motivate them and to make them focus on what was beneficial for the team and for them individually. Writing a report recommending these players to return to first class cricket for a year and then seeing the selectors pick Shehzad for the Twenty20 team should have put Waqar in a quandary. Instead, he seems happy at benefitting from having picked up a lucrative contract and is not eager to change course.

Doubly strange and disheartening is the medical panel of the PCB. A list of the number of players who have suffered through injuries and poor fitness issues will give an idea about its poor showing. Mohammad Irfan breaking down before the crucial quarter-final; Junaid Khan and Umar Gul not making it to the team due to recurrence of injuries or poor rehabilitation; Mohammad Hafeez sent back due to an injury which should have healed in a week’s time; an outstanding slow left-arm bowler failing a dope test despite the panel’s duty to motivate players to refrain from using illicit drugs; the level of fitness of other players, like Sohaib Maqsood carrying a partially healed stress fracture of the wrist. The list goes on and still the people on the medical panel have been allowed to experiment with the team without being ostracised or taken to task? Something like this could only happen in Pakistan where people without the requisite qualifications with no structured training have been tasked to run an international team.

Modern cricket is different. It is based more on fitness, high endurance, energy preservation, athleticism, speed, kinetics, innovation, maximising strength and minimising sapping, focus, balance, game awareness, situational alteration or modification and execution of individual and team plans than on anything else. A simple thing like rotating the strike while batting needs super skills, agility, stamina and fitness.

It seems that no one at the PCB knows the difference between a franchise and a sponsor, between feedback mechanism and data interpretation. There seems to be little knowledge regarding soil analysis of pitches, pre- and post-match fitness regimens, the difference between power and strength, agility and quickness, and between specialised fielding practices and individualised optimised training.

The reality of Pakistan cricket is that in the administrative offices, old, outdated people, who are now qualified and who do not have supra-specialist certifications have been running it. Both players and officials remain imprisoned in the status quo and in the over-romanticised times of past glory. Modern cricket has seen the developed teams moving on, whilst we are standing on the tip of redundancy. Pakistan has not been able to build sustainable cricketing institutions. Accountability is crucial and it has been in short supply.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 14th,  2015.

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COMMENTS (5)

Ahmed | 8 years ago | Reply I think its high time players themselves took responsibility for their performances. Why are the media and analysts such as yourself always criticizing the coach's performance or the board's performance. Board's performance and cricket team's performance are two separate things. I regularly followed Game on Hai on PTV during the World Cup and it was sickening to see Mohsin Khan constantly putting down Waqar simply because Waqar was rightly preferred over him for the position of head coach of Pakistan team. All those who believe including Mohsin Khan that Pakistan beat England 3-0 in test series because of Mohsin Khan need to be reminded that that series win was the result of hard work put in by Waqar and Misbah after the spot fixing scandal. Someone also needs to remind Mohsin Khan that it was under him that Pakistan lost the odi series 4-0 and t20 series 2-1 to England. Why doesnt the media or you ever highlight this. Pakistan played with 4 spinners in that series. Yes the English players were struggling to play spin in the longer format but if you are going to go with 4 spinners eventually they were going to get used to it. That was a very big blunder and the media never bothers to bring this up. Shouldn't Mohsin Khan be held accountable for this. Coming back to the point I was making. International players are professionals. As professionals it is their job to make sure their techniques, fitness, attitude are up to the standard needed to be successful at the international level. At the top level, don't expect people to come and spoon-feed you. But it seems just like any other profession in Pakistan, they are just not fully committed towards their profession and only care about fame and money. Razzaq has the fitness of a 50 year old and yet he wants to be selected even though he hasn't regularly featured in domestic cricket. Waqar is right in his approach that he is filtering out all those players who don't have the commitment and the mindset needed to play for Pakistan.
BN | 8 years ago | Reply Completely agree with the piece. Bang on. @Ali: Criticism for the sake of criticism much ? @Shahid: Calling a spade a spade should never be discouraged. Thats just how our cricket is at the moment.
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