Pakistan cricket is in trouble. Three factors stand out in any analysis of what has gone wrong: the Pakistan Cricket Board continues to be run like a fiefdom; the country lacks an efficient cricketing structure; and while the players are extremely talented, nearly all of them lack in discipline and character training. For all these reason, the arrangement doesn’t gel as a good and winning team. Can something be done to improve matters?
Yes and no. Yes, if we decide that cricket is serious business and we need to solve the sport’s structural problems before we can hope to get a team that is top-notch and consistent in its performance. No, if we continue to rely on ad hoc measures and merely shuffle the existing deck of cards in the hope of finding a lucky combination of aces. The latter approach has not worked; the former has not been tried. But before we get down to the basics of the structural approach, let’s take a look at what’s happening.
The PCB is being run on the basis of personal likes and dislikes. The chief selector, Aamir Sohail, is the golf buddy of chairman Tauqir Zia. Mr Sohail is widely regarded as an unpleasant man with a short fuse. We still recall his provocative gesture to the Indian pace bowler Srinath during the Bangalore game after he had hit him for a four. Instead of keeping his focus on the job at hand and speaking with his bat, Mr Sohail chose to point his finger at the boundary to humiliate the Indian bowler. Srinath took him out with the next ball. That was also the end of the game for Pakistan. Off the field, Mr Sohail has had various run-ins with other players and at least one with former chairman Majid Khan. This gent is now tasked with selecting the team. His latest move is to include Chairman Zia’s son in the Pakistani side which is to play the Kiwis when they arrive on December 27. Zia Jr gave a pathetic performance when he played minnows Bangladesh in three one-day matches here. So bad was his performance that he had to be pulled out. But Mr Sohail has excelled himself this time. Zia Jr was not even in the 22 probables announced earlier.
Next in line is the coach, Javed Miandad. Mr Miandad has had a running battle with Mr Sohail because both want to dominate the selection process. Mr Miandad also has an axe to grind. He wants his nephew Faisal Iqbal to be included in the side. But Mr Sohail isn’t biting. If, despite their mutual hostility, they are still in their respective positions, it is only because Mr Miandad has a very lucrative contract with PCB and is far too pragmatic to walk out on the basis of principles and lose the lucre.
Then we have our skipper, Inzamamul Haq. Mr Haq is a great batsman but has no talent to lead a team. He is also, like others, fond of off-field politicking. He has picked up a row with Mr Sohail because he wants to bring back one of his buddies, former wicketkeeper-skipper Moin Khan. Mr Sohail has obliged but not without muttering expletives deleted. Meanwhile, the new player Akmal Kamal who performed well behind the wickets as well as with the bat earlier in the World Cup has been sent away with the A-team to India. Other players, too, are temperamentally unstable and ill-disciplined. This is of course just a bird’s eye-view of Pakistan cricket. There are many other issues that make the whole affair stink to the high heavens. If things stand as they are the prognosis is not good. But they don’t have to.
The first thing that needs be done is to hand over Pakistan cricket to Imran Khan. Now we know that is easier said than done. Mr Khan is a politician and he is in the opposition and he has been saying harsh things about General Pervez Musharraf, provoking the latter to reply in kind. But cricket should be a non-partisan affair and both gentlemen should rise above their personal likes and dislikes for the sake of the game. The fact is there is no one better placed than Mr Khan to set it right. In the past, he has presented many ideas on reforming the structure of cricket. It is time that some of those ideas are implemented. The PCB has to be reformed to make it more accountable. In the present system some of our best players get Test caps without playing first-class cricket. That has to change. But first-class cricket needs basic structural changes. Matches between organisations and banks will not do. Pakistan will have to introduce a system of district or counties playing each other. Regional rivalries are essential if first-class cricket has to appeal to sponsors, spectators and viewers. No one wants to see Habib Bank play PIA or UBL play WAPDA. That would change if Karachi were playing Lahore, or Lahore was playing Gujranwala. Such a system would also bring in money for local cricket boards that should rightly have their input in the PCB’s final decision-making process. Within each region there should be clubs for locating, grooming and playing talented players. Once you have the money, you can also attract players from outside, much in the same way that cricket is played in Britain or Australia.
A gradual system of ladder-climbing will also help in grooming players before they play in the national side. Now, after playing a few matches most of them can neither handle fame nor money. This needs to be changed through grooming the players over a period of time. The selection process itself will have to undergo a major change with these structural changes. It is time to revamp not just the team, but the entire system. *
