Reasons behind the downfall of Pakistan cricket

The Pakistan’s cricket team is performing worse and worse, day by day. There was a time when Pakistan cricket was at its peak, when everyone talked about the speed and bowling length of Pakistani pacers like Sheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah. The time when the first over of Shaheen was dangerous for opening batsmen, when Indian openers could not stay on the crease after facing just a few overs by Shaheen, when the speedster’s each ball was 145+ kilometers per hour (KPS).

But every rise has a fall, and this fall had been authored by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). The PCB used every bowler like a machine, not caring about their injuries, mental stress, rest, and many things that are related to the fitness of an athlete.

Before the ODI Asia Cup 2023, the Pakistan pace trio of Shaheen, Haris, and Naseem was considered the deadliest bowling attack in the world. The trio had made it difficult to chase 200 runs in ODI for the biggest teams in the world.

It was a T20 match, but Naseem Shah’s spells at the MCG brought a whole set of different vibes. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/3TAB6PnZOJ

— Selenophile 🇵🇸🌙🥀 (@Koi_Msla) December 27, 2023

If you remember the T20 World Cup 2022 final when Pakistani batters could only score 137 runs on a good batting pitch, this trio didn’t allow English batsmen to move and chase easily, but due to the very low target, Pakistan lost the match. In the semi-final of the same tournament, Pakistan stopped the strongest team of the tournament New Zealand by just 152 runs.

There are many reasons but here are some prominent reasons that PCB is destroying Pakistan’s cricket:

1-No backup bowler for the main bowling lineup:

The PCB used only Shaheen, Haris, and Naseem for a long time and didn’t prepare any alternative bowler in case of injuries or any other issues with these bowlers. As a result, Pakistan lost in the Asia Cup due to the unavailability of Naseem Shah in the bowling department, and the ODI World Cup.

The PCB knew that Naseem was injured before the Asia Cup, but they forced him to play, and as a result, Naseem lost his biggest opportunity to play in the World Cup and rested for approximately one year. Now PCB is using Shaheen in all three formats despite knowing that if he continues bowling like this we will lose him in the next one or two years.

According to a report, Shaheen bowled 750 overs at the age of 20, while Protease’s Kagiso Rabada was the second with only 344 overs. Shaheen, who bowled every ball on 145+ KPH, is now bowling at an average of 135 KPH.

India’s Hardik Pandya was injured during the World Cup and Muhammad Shami replaced him, but the replacement was much better than Pandya as Shami became the highest wickets-taker in the World Cup. Every team had a strong backup to give some rest to the main lineup.

2-No permanent spinner in the bowling lineup:

The Pakistan team has no permanent spinner in the bowling lineup. We used Shadab, Nawaz, and Iftikhar as our spinners for a long time. The pacers were covering the spinner’s mistakes. During the ODI World Cup most wickets were taken by our pacers. Where every team had a good spinner we were relying on Shadab, Nawaz, and Iftikhar who are all-rounders.

I don’t know how our selection committee works, we had only one spinner Abrar Ahmed and we included him too in the reserved squad. I mean are you serious? You are going to play the biggest event of Cricket without any spinner?

During Pakistan team’s tour of Australia, we don’t have any good spinners. Australia is playing with a proper bowling lineup in which Mitchel Starc is leading the pace department while Nathan Lyon is one of the best red ball spinners leading the spin department.

In the first test match of this tour in which Australia defeated Pakistan by 360 runs, we had only Agha Salman as a spinner.

3-Giving no chance to young batsmen:

The PCB is not giving any proper chance to young batsmen like Muhammad Haris and Saim Ayub. PCB allows Imam ul Haq to play as the opener in the Asia Cup and World Cup but does not give a single chance to these young batters who were more impactful than Imam as an opener.

PCB included Haris in the reserve squad of the World Cup and Imam in the main squad. On the other hand, where each team’s openers were playing on a run rate of 8+, our batsmen with a strike rate of 4 would have returned to the pavilion before the end of the power play and left all the burden on the middle order batsmen.

4-Involving national players in personal controversies

Former captain Babar Azam’s chat was leaked on ARY during the Wasim Badami’s show. This was a massive controversy because according to Badami, Chairman PCB Zaka Ashraf allowed him to show that leaked screenshot of Babar Azam’s chat with PCB’s CEO Arslan Naseer.

5-Selection of player/captain on personal desires

An audio leak of PCB’s Chairman Zaka Ashraf with an unknown woman came to light in which Zaka Ashraf was talking about Babar Azam’s removal as the national cricket team’s captain and how Shaheen Afridi was preferred over Muhammad Rizwan as T20 team captain.

This is the time when PCB should avoid these propagandas and should think about national cricket otherwise this may lead to the destruction of the only happiness of Pakistanis.