Do we need accountability system for cricket selectors?
KARACHI: Saeed Bin Nasir, the 24-year-old middle-order batsman from Karachi, must be wondering what more does he have to do to warrant selection in the Pakistan second string side or to secure a place even among the senior team probables.
**After achieving a career first-class average of 45.34 in 35 matches for a total of 2,222 runs, and an average of 54.95 in his one-day career of 32 matches, Saeed should have been a certain selection for the Pakistan academies side that left for South Africa on Wednesday. And to add insult to injury he is also missing from the list of 20 probables announced for the Test series against Bangladesh.
The right-hander, who plays for KRL and Karachi, had terminated his lucrative league contract in Chesterfield to return home early and make himself available for national selection. He was among the 35 players who’re sent letters by the PCB asking for their availability.
This is surprising as everybody who has seen him bat believe he’s a future Pakistan player in the making. But the selectors appear to think otherwise because even after scoring 402 runs in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy at an average of 50.35 and another 318 at 106 in the Patrons Cup one-day tournament this season, he can’t find a place even in the academy outfit.
Saeed averaged 50 in the Ramazan Cup organised by the PCB this season and was also consistent in the 2001-2002 season scoring 793 runs in nine innings of the Quaid Trophy with three hundreds at an average of 66.**
And yet even such consistent performances didn’t convince the selectors he should have gone to South Africa with the academy side which includes many players who’ve already been tested and not in Saeed’s class.
But perhaps the selectors are working on some “provincial quota system” while picking teams. Perhaps they believe it would not be fair on other provinces that Saeed should also be considered when already there are several other promising batsmen from Karachi who’ve been selected for the Academy side or are among Pakistan probables.
One hopes this feeling is not true but what else can one infer from the way Saeed has been treated after being called all the way from England although the PCB did not give any guarantees to the players and only sought their availability.
When the selectors can pick players like Muhammad Khalil, who has played in only six first-class games, and Abdul Sattar, who’s yet to play a first-class game, among the Pakistan probables why couldn’t the same apply to Saeed?
One hopes the PCB chairman has an accountability system in place for the selectors because when someone as promising as Saeed is ignored, this should not go unnoticed.
Here we go again… Another talented player goes down the drain with regional quota problem(Oh yeah that’s news to me) before his career even kicks off. I just don’t understand why selectors especially Mr. Aamir Sohail have to be so rude and dumb. If you can’t find a qualified person from Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Rawalpindi etc etc and you do from Karachi but ignored the qualified player just because it won’t filled the stupid fu-king quota system…that’s absurd and pathetic.
Here’s a guy Saeed Bin Nazir, who holds a perfect record in the Pakistan Domestic Cricket, who can be a good future middle-order batsman for Pakistan and yet he has been ignored by the selectors. He’s not even in the Pakistan ‘A’ Team. Talk about ignorance!
. Misbah -ul haq also holds such average and he is being sidelined for wrong reasons.wierd isnt it ?