Pakistan's journey in the path of Cricketing suicide

Well, at the outset, I must make it clear that I am not writing this piece about Pakistani Cricket out of any joy or delight at the sagging fortune of our bitter rivals. No, I don't believe in Pakistan bashing in sports. Nor do I believe that any fall in standard or might of Pakistani Cricket is worth a celebration for any rational cricket fan considering how narrowed down the game has become in terms of quality and Competition. I am aware that post the dramatic decline of West Indies, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Sri Lanka, and no sign of improvement of Bangladesh, the world can't afford any more nations going into a Coma, least of them, Pakistan, an Asian team that has had such a glorious past in terms of sheer talent and whose regaining of lost power and mettle are so much crucial to keep Asia and Asian cricketing lobby as a balancing factor in global cricketing dynamics. So when they had an unceremonious exit from the 2023 ODI WC held in familiar conditions in the subcontinent, I was as worried as their hardcore fans.

When they had a listless journey laced with failures in the 2024 T20 WC, it didn't make me ecstatic. And finally, when they reached a new low with an embarrassing first 10-wicket defeat at home to a Bangladesh team, that itself is not shining any brighter than it was a couple of decades back; it made me sad and upset at the same time. Sad, because of the tragic state of the game in a Country which had given the world greats like Hanif Mohammad, Zaheer Abbas, Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Inzamam Ul Haq, Wasim Akram and Waqar Yunis and upset, because the very people who are supposed to nurture the beautiful game and enormous talent in that country, are hell-bent on burying the game. So it's purely out of frustration and anger, and not any fun or joy that I decided to put down this piece, where I intend to list down the most basic, glaring factors responsible for the sad state of Cricket in Pakistan. 

The single biggest factor responsible for putting Pakistani Cricket on a ventilator is the concoction of Politics and Cricket (mis) governance. Yes, there are a series of specific factors too, contributing to the game's downfall. But those factors are derivatives of the primary factor that pertains to the topmost layer of the nation's Cricket. 

Every Sport and its governance in every nation is deeply embroiled in politics. As an Ex BCCI President had once said, "There is more politics in Cricket than in Politics". He had said it then in the Indian context, but it is a universally relevant quote that every Board in every country could/can put at the entrance of their lavish Headquarters. So, then why single out Pakistan for the politics and its impact on their declining cricketing fortune? Well, the answer is simple. The chequered history of Democracy and politics of Pakistan has had a catastrophic impact on their Cricketing governance. At least, in most other cricket boards, once a structure is in place, with whatever influence from the political class of the nation, it is allowed to last its full tenure and run the sport with whatever vision it has. And let us be fair to the Cricket establishments. With whatever limitations and misplaced priorities, most of them still have a certain vision and goal about the sport that they would like to accomplish, with the tenure they are supposed to have constitutionally. This is where Pakistan is unique. Often, the pretentious democratic process and elections are not the privileges their Board and officials enjoy. Whoever occupies the political power, by whatever means, sets out to do one thing as one of its first tasks and that is to sack the Board chairman and through him, the Board members, Selection panels, mentors, coaching staff, National Academy Chiefs etc, whom it thinks is competent (read "loyal", "sycophant").

Now that itself is a good enough step towards damaging the game. But the damage infliction doesn't end there. Even with all the sincere effort from the regime to destroy Cricket by damaging the core governance structure and professionalism of the Board, there would still be some hope for the sport if the Board, with whoever is in charge, coming from whatever route of legitimacy, would be in its functioning, a little rational, bereft of ego, hatred and dislike for the earlier establishment. Unfortunately, they lack a basic level of professionalism and are instead filled with enough pettiness to cancel/undo/reverse every step, policy and action taken by the earlier Board and decide to put in new plans and policies, that include disturbing the very core of the sport, the competition formats (like switching from inter Department to inter provinces and then back....), schedules, methods of talent scouting, National Academy, pitches and last but not the least, the coaches, support staff etc. Now even if one agrees that a previous Board hadn't been excellent or professional in running the game, it would be preposterous to think that every step and policy and plan of theirs would be bad. A few would be definitely good and worth persisting with for a minimum period of time to yield fruits.

In some cases some steps initiated by an outgoing Board are good and they need an endorsement of continuity from its professional successor. But professionalism and Pakistan cricket don't go hand in hand. Just look at the farcical change of guard in the Pakistan Cricket Board just before, during and after the Men's 2023 ODI WC and you will have a clear understanding of the biggest factor behind the sad state of Pakistani Cricket. With the change in guard from Imran Khan in the political hierarchy, Rameez Raza was shown the door as the PCB Chairman and he was followed by two more Chairmen to coincide with the changes in the Political throne. Sadly, the regime's contribution in ruining Cricket was only partial. The people who came into the Board tried to finish the job started by the regime by rejecting everything done by the ones before them and replacing them with their ideas which had less to do with Cricket and more to do with taking care of regional and provincial interests and factors that have ailed Pakistani Cricket for ages. They, instead of trying to neutralise the sectarian virus for the overall good of Pakistani Cricket, became the enabler for its growth. Captains were changed, coaches were replaced, the Selection panel was overhauled, and team composition was disturbed radically without any consideration for long-term strategy, stability and team morale.

Now, as I said in the beginning, there are obviously many more factors that can be cited as having a direct impact on the decline of Cricket in Pakistan. But, alarming as they may be, they are derivatives of the core problem that starts from the top, which is Political interference and politics on the Board. 

Take for example the case of Coaching. There has been a lot of criticism and rightly so, about the frequent changes in Coaching staff adversely affecting the team. Now Pakistan Senior Men's team, in the last ten years has had 12 Coaches, namely, Dave Whatmore, Moin Khan, Waqar Yunis, Mickey Arthur, Misbah Ul Haq, Saqlain Mushtaq, Abdul Rehman, Grant Bradburn, Mohammad Hafeez, Azhar Mahmood, Gary Kirsten and Jason Gillespie. It means on average, there has been more than one coach per year. I tried to scratch my head to find one example from the world of sports where such a musical chair approach in the selection of a coach has managed to bring glory to a team. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one. Even in the notoriously fickle world of Football leagues, the most successful teams are the ones that have trusted their coaches with a longer and more stable engagement compared to the struggling and relegated teams. Manchester United reached iconic status under Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester City has managed to reap unprecedented success under Pep Guardiola's long coaching stint.

We have also seen the struggle of the same Manchester United, giants like Bayern Munich and Chelsea when their coaches have been shunted and switched frequently. So it is no rocket science to understand how confusing it would be for a team like Pakistan to follow a winning formula, process or strategy when they have been subjected to 12 individual coaches in a span of 10 years, with 12 unique identities and methodologies. So yes, frequent changes in coaching and support staff are surely a huge factor in adversely affecting the Pakistan Cricket team's performances in recent years. But then, it is a derivative of the macro factor pertaining to the Board and the musical chair happening at the Board. It's most likely that a stable professional Board without petty agenda and political interference would be confident enough to stick with their selected Coaching staff for a little longer to give them time to deliver the desired results.

Then there are factors like Scouting talent, team selection, workload management and injury and fitness management. It is an open secret that sectarian fault lines, factionalism, dishonesty, jealousy and lack of professionalism in the Board are the reasons why seldom genuine and deserving talent manages to get noticed and picked at the right time. If in spite of all of the above loopholes, players like Inzamam Ul Haq, Wasim Akram, Waqar Yunis, Aqib Javed etc could make the Pakistan team, it tells us more about their extraordinary talent than the talent scouting system. Now sadly, the problem doesn't end with being noticed. Even if a talented kid is noticed, there is a fresh challenge in terms of him being selected in the final 16 or 11 and given a much-needed longer rope to start delivering. Thanks to, once again the incompetent, unprofessional Board/Selection panel. The famous joke about Pakistan cricket is, that their players have more lives than a Cat. A cat may have 9 lives, but most Pakistani senior Cricketers have many more lives. Shahid Afridi's retirements and comebacks are testimony to the above theory. As Boards change and new regimes step in, they give a message to a few players that they are not welcome and they can retire while a few retired players are given an instant welcome with a red carpet. 

Accordingly, they reverse their retirements and find a place in playing 11 within no time. Mohammad Amir is a classic example. Ramiz Raza during his tenure as Board Chairman was clear that he didn't want any player with a tainted past to be part of the Pakistan team. So Amir walked away. Out went Ramiz, in came a new Chairman and Amir was playing T20 WC within months. Now in all this, there is no clarity among the Selection Panel, Coach and Captain regarding which new and young talent to be nurtured or persisted with for long-term build-up and which senior ones are no longer part of long-term planning for big tournaments. Now with such floating and ad-hoc team selection and gross interference from the Board, who in turn are under the influence of political powers, how can any Coach and Captain make any effective planning and strategising for any big tournament? Now talking about the Captain, his predicament and situation are not any less bizarre and unsure than the Coaching staff. A high-profile Captain (Babar Azam) is virtually thrown under the Bus by his Board even in the midst of a WC happening in a sensitive neighbouring country where the pressure is anyway monumental. Now just imagine how multifold that pressure would have been for him and the team to know he has been sacrificed publicly even before the end of the tournament. You don't need an opponent to damage your chances any further, with the kind of contribution from your own board.

So what happened next? Babar had to resign from Captaincy post the 2023 ODI WC, Shaheen Shah Afridi was made white ball captain and Shan Masood was given test Captaincy. Within months, Shaheen was stripped of Captaincy and white ball captaincy was back with Babar. Can you imagine anything more bizarre than this in modern-day cricket? Now watching all this, you can imagine what confidence Shan Masood would be having today regarding his future as Pakistan Captain. The third critical factor in the area of Team and resources responsible for Pakistan's decline is injury and workload management. It's a fact that years of cricketing wilderness (inability to host cricket games due to terrorism) had a serious financial impact on Pakistan cricket. The crumbling economic situation of the country hasn't helped the financial condition of the board either. As a result, the Board has not been able to match their rich neighbour (India) or financially stable Australia and England in rewarding their players with lucrative contracts or financial security.

As a result, the players have turned into almost freelancers like that from WI and are more keen to play every T20 league in the world to secure their financial conditions. As a result, injury, fatigue and motivation (lack of it) are clearly visible in most of them while playing for the nation and no wonder the team is drowning with a bunch of players high on reputation and talent but low on fitness and motivation and flawed techniques due to overexposure to T20 Cricket. The greatest contemporary Pakistan bowler and their biggest match-winner, Shaheen Shah Afridi is a case in point. Clearly his form, fitness and perhaps, motivation have taken a nosedive post-2022 when he had that bad injury during the 2022 T20 WC for which he had to undergo surgery. As his form dipped, so did the form and results of Pakistan in every format of Cricket. Unfortunately, the Pakistan Board has no strategy or plan to approach this issue in a professional manner. They don't have a firm policy on injury management, workload management, or development of bench strength and no clue on how to instil pride in young talented Pakistani players in playing for Pakistan and Test cricket. To make it worse, the kind of pitches they are providing at every level of domestic as well as international test cricket is shying away fans and talented kids from opting to watch or play longer format cricket. So there again, it's the Board which is doing all that is needed to put cricket, especially test cricket on the deathbed. 

Let us acknowledge one thing. Cricket is not the fastest sport in the world. Nor is it the most physically exhilarating sport. It is a game of delicate skills and execution of those skills with a lot of background strategising and scheming. In today's modern era, it requires dedicated nurturing of the game to keep it healthy and thriving. For that, a Country needs a highly professional governing body with visionary administrators and experts who know how to carry the game forward with a delicate balancing between financial and sporting prioritisation and utmost respect for players and fans, who are the two most crucial stakeholders of the sport. Unfortunately, Pakistan has been cursed in that most crucial facet due to the politicisation and factionalism in their governance body. One hopes, there will be a miracle one day and they will have self-realisation about what harm they have done to their cricket and the betrayal they have done to the millions of their cricket-loving fans. Perhaps then they will start to sit down and work for the game with sincerity and honesty. Their fans deserve nothing less and the Cricketing world is waiting eagerly for that day to arrive.

By- Ambika Prasad Mahapatra