People whine & moan about most of the cricketers I am about to mention below but this is my personal opinion.
People who follow cricket, follow it for entertainment. Sports is entertainment. The reason there now is so much money involved in it is because it is providing more entertainment then it ever did before. So keepking that in mind wouldnt it be fair to say that we need entertainers rather than brilliant crickters in our team. Yes, we can have a Younis Khan and a Umar Gul cause we need them but purley from an entertainment point of view, shouldnt we have kept or treated better players like Imran Nazir, Shoaib Akhtar, Shahid Afridi ? Now these players might fire once in a while but … they are crowd pullers. And isnt that what cricket is all about these days ?
We diss IPL, thought almost everyone watches it. Everyone watches it and thats why the leagure can afford to pay players so well. IPL is nothing but entertainment. Where players like Rahul Dravid, Younis Khan, VVS Laxman etc have a very tough shot at shinning but players like Afridi, Razzaq, Akhtar, Nazir (I am only talking about Pakistani players) have the potential of one very very fiery performance that everyone will remember till the end of the tournament. So economically speaking wouldnt it make sense to keep the super stars, the crowd pullers in our side and let the world want to bring their cricket to you ??