After a dismal performance of the Pakistan team in India where they lost a test series after 27 years the people of Pakistan were expecting major changes not only in the team but in the management also, but their hopes were dampened after the press conference of Nasim Ashraf where he announced that he is going to carry on with the status quo, Malik and Lawson both got the vote of confidence for the remainder of their term, this news was not taken well by the media and they pestered Nasim Ashraf with angry questions, the media not only raised questions about the chairman’s own performance but they also showed extreme dissatisfaction about the performance of Malik, Lawson, Talat Ali and Sallu, it is rumored that this quartet has formed a group of their own and was responsible for making some bizarre selection decisions for the test series in India where they sent Afridi and Gul back home and selected Faisal Iqbal and Sami instead a decision which according to some sources has irked Younis Khan and has prompted him to actively pursue the Job of Captaincy. In a recent statement Younis openly stated that “previously the job of captaincy was after him but now he is determined to become the captain provided his three conditions are met” what are these conditions no body knows. But it is quite clear to everybody that he does enjoy the support of most of the players in the team but does not enjoy the support of the PCB top brass.
This soap opera is not new for Pakistani cricket fans the history of Pakistan cricket team is filled with these internal frictions between the players and the tug of war between the players and the board but under Inzamam although the team went through many scandals but everybody felt that this internal bickering has become a thing of past, full credit must go to Mr. Nasim Ashraf who resurrected this soap opera by adopting a policy of divide and rule, after WC-07 he promised the nation that he will completely put an end to the player power in the team and will restore discipline in the team, he appointed Shoaib Malik as the new Captain completely ignoring Mohammed Yousuf, Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar and Younis Khan even though that the former three openly expressed their desire to lead the team. Judging by the performance of these players one can easily say that Yousuf, Afridi and Younis Khan didn’t accept this decision whole heartedly and never gave their full support to their young captain in crucial matches although Younis and Yousuf scored runs but either they scored it at an extremely slow pace which eventually hurt the team or they scored when it didn’t matter they never tried to close or finish a match under Malik’s captaincy except on one or two rare instances.
Malik on the other hand showed a lot of promise in T20 championship as a captain but in the Test series against SA and on the Indian Tour he completely lost control over the team his weaknesses as a captain became quite obvious and he completely failed to lead the team and due to his personal lack of form his position in the test team as a player came under question and he was criticized from all quarters. If consistent performances in both forms of the game have to be the sole criteria to be the Captain of the team then Afridi does not deserve a place in the test team and Younis Khan does not deserve a place in the ODI team the only player who deserves a place in both forms of the game is Yousuf, who for some odd reason has not been even considered by PCB for the Job.
Because of this division in the team it is hitting new lows after every series, Pakistan has dropped to the 6th position in ICC rankings and it seems that losing is becoming a habit of our team. Mr. Nasim Ashraf and Salahuddin Sallu have announced some changes in their respective press conferences but none of these changes are going to break the present Status quo. In my opinion Pakistan team needs a separate captain for the test and ODI team, Malik should lead in T20 and ODis and Younis Khan or Mohammed Yousuf should lead the test team.
Shoaib Akhtar should be kicked out of the team if the selectors can’t judge his fitness then they should also lose their jobs. Pakistan is blessed with immense talent in the pace department youngsters should be given a chance. If we have to fancy our chances for the next WC then we have to start inducting new players on merit and start grooming them right now we should follow the Indian model in this respect.
Jeff Lawson has proved to be a mere spectator he is only enjoying his huge salary and has not improved the team in any department, local coaches should be hired. The present management should be changed immediately as under their rule this internal politics will continue and we might have to endure this soap opera for many more years to come.
scott styris has been left out of the test squad against bangladesh, because he only had 1 poor series.
in pakistan we do we keep playing players who have consistently given poor performances?
The Selection Committee did its job by selecting Fawad and Sarfraz for two or three series but the team management ignored these players. The way Fawad was handled in the T20 Cup was astounding as he is in the top 10 T20 players in the world according to domestic rankings. The team did well in T20 so I should not complain as much but the way both these players have been dealt with generally is quite surprising.
Also once again the Chief Selector made an announcement a few days ago that we will see new faces in the series against Zimbabwe. He also mentioned that Akmal and Butt might be rested. However once again the PCB management has intervened and told him to select the best possible team and retain Akmal. This means we will continue with the existing crop of players.
The reason I don’t want to go hard on the Selection Committee is because they made a pledge to include youngsters on merit. Youngsters are the way ahead for our current team and I can see that the Committee is trying to get in form youngsters in, but the team management and some elements in the PCB do not want that to happen.
Soap opera it is, it seems like deja vue, each time we lose a series we read the same head lines in the newspapers “strict disciplinary action will be taken against Shoaib Akhtar”, “Afridi vows to improve his game and Vows to make a comeback”, “the selectors promise to select more youngsters”. “The chairman vows that he will not tolerate any indiscipline”. “The captain states that he enjoys full support of the team”. “Kineria promises he will uplift his game”.PCB administration admonishes the groundstaff for not preparing quality tracks.”
In the end we get more of the same.
Youth is selected but not played and after the series discarded.
Afridi plays his usual game, Akhtar breaks down again and his off the field indiscipline remains unchecked and unpunished.
Kineria keeps on leaking runs and fails to make an impact.
We will continue to witness this soap opera untill PCB is managed by these corrupt people.
Amitp:
I don’t think Younis performed any miracle as far captaincy is concerned, the only difference I saw was that Younis didn’t performed well under Malik’s captaincy and played like an entirely different player when he was captaining the team. I have already outlined the reasons behind such inconsistent performance.
M.Y KASIM
I agree with you on Sallu mallu its his old habit to shift blame, Whenever the team loses he always says openly in the media that he was not allowed to work freely and independently, the guy lacks integrity and honor, if his arm is being twisted then for honor’s sake he should resign. You are right we need to induct new players but Asim Kamal is history now he is no longer young and his domestic performance is not good I think we should move on and stop mourning about him, there are plenty of young players who can take his place.
MY Kasim,
Sir I do appreciate and accept your comments to a degree. As I stated earlier I know this SC (selection committee) goofed up big time. But why do we not decide to sanction our players, especially the senior elements who have years of experience behind them?
It is embedded in the mind of every PCB employee that if Shoaib Akhtar is only half fit, he should be played in a match. That is something we have constantly experienced for half a dozen years now. When was the last time Shoaib was fully fit in any series anyway? So why place total blame on the SC when they only did what is deemed customary?
The team management is the bigger culprit because they decided to play Shoaib despite his illness and lack of fitness. I think there was a communication gap between the management and the SC. Otherwise Shoaib should have been sent back along with Sami and some decent replacements should have been dispatched. It was chaos wasn’t it in between the Test series- bowlers were unfit, the wicketkeeper kept dropping catches, the stand in captain had issues of his own and the team morale was pitiful.
I think PCB does not do enough to sanction players. Younis, Malik, Akhtar and Akmal should be interrogated and disciplined but so far what we have seen is, Akhtar has not been touched, Younis is behaving like a gangster (always has), Malik has been the subject of a sham “grilling” exercise and Akmal may be considered as a specialist batsman in this upcoming Zimbabwe series. Why is Akmal still in the team? PCB have recently advertised a position for a wicketkeeping coach. This clearly shows that they still want to keep Akmal for a long period and they will employ the coach to keep Akmal in check. Currently some wicketkeepers are doing exceptionally well in the domestic circuit like Sarfraz Ahmed and Ali Asad but I just don’t know why they are not being considered above Akmal for the longer run.
There is too much player power in the team. This Zimbabwe series provides an excellent platform to try a completely new team, with Malik as captain and all the senior players absent. I would try something like this:
Afaq Raheem
Khurram Manzoor
Adnan Raza
Saeed Bin Nasir
Shoaib Malik
Misbah ul Haq
Fawad Alam
Sarfraz Ahmed
Sohail Tanvir
Abdur Rauf
Sohail Khan
I think Mohammad Asif, Rao Ifthikar and Umar Gul can be used in a few matches because these players when fit, have performed. But knowing PCB I know we may only see 2 or 3 new faces.
I always have a great respect and a very high regard for the most intelligent and insight analysis by Khansahab but
regret to differ on few of the points:
No where in the world, even in the Banana Republics, a
“president” is “elected” nine times. Only in our beloved Pakistan , a Chairman of Selection Commitee has been appointed for the ninth time. Mian “ullu” has been kicked out 8 times before and I really envy and admire his enormous ability to bounce back. I wish our cricketers has/had the same ability!! He traveled to India to watch the Test series apparantly at the board’s expenses and saw for himself that Shoaib Akhtar, Shoaib Malik and Umer Gul are injured and not fit to play. Being the chief selector, he should have exercised his judgement and authourity to send for fresh replacements. Look what happened! He did not have the courage to stand up and say to his boss, Shafqat Nagmi that it is his prerogative to choose and ask for whosoever is needed. How much money would have cost a simple Telephone call? As I have said in couple of my previous blogs, some emerginging young fast bowlers and Asim Kamal would have been better choices. Even a timid getleman like Wasim Bari took a bold decision by including two completely unknown rookies. One of them was a flop, while the other went on to become Pakistan’s spearhead whithin a space of 18 months or so.
Another and most important point is:
We must get rid of most of the high-salaried “experts” and
“technocrats” who does nothing but enjoy their perks and are always on foreign tours on one pretext or others with their families on PCB’s expense.
I just read a news article in which Shafqat Nagmi said he has decided not to award annual increament to the groundsmen because ” they have failed to produce fast and bouncy wickets”.
May I ask what punitive actions PCB plans to take against
the selection commitee, the manager, all the different high paying managers and directors and above all against himself for the debacle against South Africa at home and India in India .
It is easy to punish those poor goundsmen who has no voice and who can hardly meet both ends in this Inflation and rising cost of living.
What about those who runs the board? Are’nt they responsible and answerable to the public? Don’t they take credit and plaudits when the Team performs well? Dont they have any decency to accept that they goofed big time?
Instead of crying and pretending that we lost because of injuries and blaming other factors to cloud the real reason which were bad selection and not preparing for the eventuality that injuries are bound to happen since Shoaib Akhtar and few others were not 100% fit. Moreover, fast bowlers are liable to break-downs, especially in India’s dead pithes. We have a lot of talented young fast bowlers, we should have picked some of them and put others on stand-by. Our strenghth has always been PACE and not SPIN. India’s weakness has traditionally been real fast bowling, they play spin better than anybody in the world. Look at their statics: more than 30,000 runs among their world-class batting power-house. Can anybody in his craziest imagination think that some medium- pacers or ordinary spinners can take 20 wickets on these dead Indian pitches? Only the Pakistani batsmen with their stupid harakiri nature could throw away their wickets. The only way to cope with the situation was to pack the team with six talented really fast youngsters and one solid left handed middle order batsman. Out of these six, at least three would definitely have emerged as stars, I am pretty sure about it.
There is still time, nothing is lost. Zim are coming, so are the Ausies ( hopefully) Try new talent against Aus. We are gonna lose in any case, why not try against the best and
see where we stand.
I would not blame the selection committee as much as the other limbs of the PCB including the captain, the team management, the coach and other administrators. I know this is not a perfect selection committee and I know as well that merit does not seem to be its top priority but I still think this is a better committee than the one headed by Wasim Bari. Under this committee we saw Razzaq being dropped which was one of the best things to happen to Pakistan cricket in this current tumultuous phase the team is facing. We also saw the committee adopt a stringent approach to Inzamam early this year, citing in many instances that Inzi’s form and fitness would be taken into account if he is to be included in any squad and the selection committee was still very generous to him by giving him an opportunity to become Pakistan’s leading run getter.
Hence I think the committee has good intentions but it is not being supported fully by the captain and management. What I did not like about this committee is its repeated persistence with the so called specialist openers like Hameed and Nazir (but that is something many people in Pakistan want because they think only domestic openers should open in international cricket) and I also did not think it was wise to send Iqbal to play in India (but then again this has been done by the previous committee too). As far as Mohammad Sami is concerned the committee has not realised (like most people in Pakistan) that some players do not have the temperament to succeed in international cricket, whether it is Sami or our specialist openers who have been tried and tested many times but have never given consistent performances. Sami’s performance in domestic cricket has always been outstanding and his recent performances have been noteworthy, on which pretext the committee chose him to play on the slow pitches of India. What has to be applauded as well is the committee’s faith in a previous discard like Misbah and its enthusiasm with trying youngsters like Sarfraz, Fawad and Tanvir. I know they are still not trying enough youngsters but that is because they don’t have total control over the senior player mafia who consider themselves above the PCB. You can imagine the criticism and headaches the committee received by excluding Razzaq and Farhat- I think they are too concerned with keeping peace with the masses rather than making effective decisions. When this committee was chosen one of their plans was to go on a talent hunt throughout the country and pick quality youngsters but because of the mafia in the team management and senior players the selection committee has faced difficulty implementing its role. Also I don’t understand the point in having a selection committee when the captain has to approve all players, because then usually the captain’s will takes precedence over the committee’s will.
I think Malik is still learning as a captain and even as a batsman and he has my full support. I don’t think Malik is a rational or wise individual but he has the talent to go a long way and I think because of that reason he must be supported. We have to be very careful about whose fault it is and what needs to be done. If Malik does not have the support of the team members should his captaincy be removed or should the team members be removed? We know it is more practicable for Malik to be removed. At the moment Malik needs support of the seniors and he needs a dose of confidence. It is pathetic how all over the world, young captains when appointed have garnered full and unmitigated support of the seniors. This has been witnessed in England where Collingwood was appointed captain, South Africa with Smith, Sri Lanka with Jayawardene and even India with Dhoni in ODI’s. However in Pakistan there is a clear problem with senior players who are playing for their egos and selfish interests.
Since his religious conversion and consequent impeccable performance, Yousuf has managed to earn respect from all quarters. There has been a discernible change in his personality and he now commands authority from junior players. However strangely PCB does not recognise that and thinks it is the same old Yousuf whose job was only to score runs. I used to believe Yousuf is not captaincy material and I know he is not the ideal captain for Pakistan because his person is very similar to Inzi’s. However I think the only captaincy-related action that can save the team from the current predicament in making Yousuf captain in both ODI’s and Tests. The reason why I support this now is because Malik clearly has no support from the seniors and the youngsters in the team look to people like Yousuf, Afridi and Younis as their role models, not Malik. Also Yousuf has been Pakistan’s most consistent batsman for a long time now. His consistency and overseas record in ODI’s is even more impressive than his record in Tests, where he rose to world prominence only after 2005 in my opinion. Some people think Yousuf is not an ODI player but I think he should be an automatic selection in ODI’s. I believe Pakistanis have somehow overlooked the fact that Yousuf averages 40 against Australia in ODI’s and 36 against South Africa which is brilliant according to Pakistani standards. His only problem is that he is a terrible fielder which I think is one of the reasons why PCB wants to avoid making him captain. PCB under Nasim Ashraf favours style over substance and favours image over reality. Hence this image conscious board wants to see a young, fit and savvy captain who can inspire the youngsters to improve their fitness and fielding. However the players in the team have different agendas.
The biggest culprit is the team manager whose responsibility is to make sure that the team has a good morale and that rogue elements in the team are disciplined. However Talat Ali has been a manager for a long time now and he has not done anything to benefit the team. Somehow I feel he is actually content with the team friction. I know Shoaib Akhtar is beyond anyone’s control but if the manager can’t even control people like Younis, Afridi and Akmal, then he shouldn’t be there.
My biggest concern is that the status quo looks likely to remain. If the same senior players behave the same way until around 2009, when the preparations for WC 2011 officially commence, then Pakistan can say goodbye to the World Cup. It is pathetic how in the past 3 or 4 years ODI cricket has become so competitive (there is only a difference of 11 “rating” points between the 3rd placed New Zealand in the current ODI table and the 8th placed West Indies) and teams like Bangladesh, England and West Indies have raised their level of performance but Pakistan seems to be going down.
I remember there were bowlers called Anwar Ali and Jamshed Ahmed who played in the under-19 world cup last year. There’s also a new bowler called Sohail Khan. I thought they would be tried, but they are yet to make their debuts. I think Pakistan should maintain a pool of 5-6 good young fast bowlers who are ready to replace the injured bowlers. Pakistan suffered against SA and India because their leading bowlers were not available due to various reasons. Since Shoaib is currently not fit enough, the younger fast bowlers should consistently figure in the playing XI, both against Zim and Australia. I feel Pakistan can afford to drop Shoaib and Sami right now. Pak should also consider having different attacks for Tests and ODIs, to prevent bowler injuries.
In the batting, I think Pak should have Akmal as a specialist batsman and opener with Sarfraz keeping wickets. Yasir Hamid and Faisal Iqbal must be dropped, and I also don’t think it’s a bad idea to recall Asim Kamal, who I think was a very consistent player despite not having scored a century.
The captaincy should be given to either Younis, Misbah or Afridi, depending on how they play against Australia. for the Australia series, Younis is not a bad choice. I don’t think they should persist with Malik.
Pakistan have the talent to beat Australia, but it must be accompanied by some tough decisions by the administrators.
I dont agree with having two captains in the team, one for odis and other for tests, specially in pak since there is a lack of rapport between mallik and younis. Its difficult for the other players to faith in any one of them, as both keep changing their guard in different formats of the game. I support younis as captain in both formats. Younis as a player respects command in both formats and, what little we have seen his captaincy, he was not bad at all. Giving more freedom and control he will be a good leader. Whereas mallik always seems susceptible to criticism whether he performs or not. But going by the pcb decision they are still playing wait and watch game. I wonder what they are waiting for.