Pakistani cricket is going through its worst time. No country, not even cricketing
minnows like Zimbabwe or Bangladesh want to go to Pakistan to play
cricket because of the terrorist attack on Sri Lank an team back in 2009. But, the
major problem resides in the quality of the new crop of players being inducted to
the team. Yasir Arafat, Umar Amin, Nasir Jamshed, Fawad Alam etc are a few
names to be mentioned here. Noticeably, most of them are batsmen and this states
the reason for the dismal performance of Pakistan cricket team in recent years, be
it Champions Trophy in 2013 or some bilateral series which include shocking loss
from Zimbabwe too.
Its not that batting was ever the strength of Pakistan cricket
team but even then they had quality players in team who were always ready to steer
the team past victory even in most adverse conditions. Javed Miandad, Zaheer Abbas,
Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yusuf are few noticeable examples. But, nowadays, we
dont find any batsman playing the same role, be it a senior or junior batsman. The only
exception can be viewed in the present team in the form of Misbah-ul-Haq and the most
ironical fact is that he is the most criticized player too of his team. Be in the captaincy part
or the batting one, everyone measures some flaws out of him. If as a captain he is described
as too defensive and lethal in his approach like rotating bowlers or setting the field. For being
a batsman, he is criticized for having a strange technique, being too slow and the one who puts
pressure on the other batsmen. But when you take a look at the new batsman they seem nowhere
he stands. Umar Amin is the leading run scorer in domestic cricket but he got exposed
while playing international cricket. The technical flaws in his batting led everyone criticize
him open heatedly. Players like Fawad Alam, Nasir Jamshed, Umar Akmal lack consistency
and have not been able to cement their place in team despite starting their international careers
long back. Players like Imran Farhat are unnecessarily made to play in the team despite not having
solid technique and hunger for runs. They say that he being a relative(I think he is son-in-law)
of some higher PCB official, so he is included in team.
Such stories exist in too many numbers and state the reasons why the corrupt PCV has brought
bad name to it by destroying young cricketing talents with a stepmother attitude for them and
being too biased for some players. That's why, they have not been able to produce a single quality
batsman like that of Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara in its neighbouring country India and that's
why they frequently suffer defeat and choke down when under pressure.
I think the high time has come that the former Pakistan players, officials and even Pak government
should interfere and play a constructive role to help revive the same Pakistani team glory who
a lifted the World Cup in 1992.
By Sir Chetan
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