Thanks Ehsan bhai. Something surely needs to be done to stop this downward spiral of Pakistan cricket. We have been in constant decline esp. as a test nation for a good while now. And I w’d blame both the board officials and players here. The players lack unity, discipline and passion and seem too willing to involve themselves in cancerous tendencies such as groupism and factionalism from time to time. And we saw plenty of evidence of that during the recent debacle in Australia. Harsher punishments need to brought in for players who indulge in such corrupt practices as groupism. Whoever is not willing to co-operate with an appointed captain and/or found guilty of playing dirty games behind the captain’s back should be banned for 1-2 years atleast - period! I have had enough of this. Player power and senior/junior mentality must not be allowed to ruin our cricket. It should be made absolutely clear to everyone that captaincy shall only be awarded to a player based on his leadership skills and not his age, cricket seniority or greatness as a batsman or bowler - though you should atleast deserve a permanent place in the team as a player! Great players do not always make great captains or coaches. Look at the examples of Hanse Cronje and Stephen Fleming. Both were not world-class players but very good captains nevertheless
And then look at countries like India and South Africa where senior players have had no problems playing under a much junior captain both in age and cricketing experience. Tendulkar, Dravid, Pollock and Kallis etc. always seemed happy playing under much juniors like Smith and Dhoni and never made an issue out of it. To their immense credit they never indulged in factionalism or groupism. Such dysfunctional (senior/junior) thinking only seems to exist in our system and culture and this only leads to groupism. Every player in our team seems to be a politician or khaleefa!
The President of Pakistan or Parliament should have no direct say in affairs of the cricket board. It should be run as a semi-private or private organisation with a constitution of it’s own. The president should not appoint PCB Chairman (have you seen anything as ridiculous as that?). We need to replace the present adhoc set-up with an accountable board. Too many ‘insincere’ PCB heads have been fooling the public with false promises of a board constitution for too long. They just never wanted to be held answerable to anyone except their benefactor, the President of Pakistan.
Whether we base our domestic cricket on regions/divisions or departments/banks we must ensure that quality is not compromised and talent is not wasted. Few but quality domestic teams (10-12 at most) is the way forward IMO
The PCB should perhaps have a permanent strong panel of consultants comprising former great cricketers such as Imran Khan, Javed Miandad and Wasim Akram (on a rotation basis!) who can advise the board management on purely cricketing matters on an annual basis. It would then be upto PCB how to best implement those recommendations in light of availabe resources and make them part of board’s policy.
And here’s the full program for those of you who missed it. Enjoy it (if you have the stamina…)