Former chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman and seasoned bureaucrat Arif Ali Khan Abbasi has blamed the ills plaguing the association for the current situation in Pakistan cricket which has eventually resulted in the country performing poorly in ICC events.
Pakistan has made early exits from the 2023 ODI World Cup, the T20 World Cup, and the ongoing Champions Trophy in which it has finished at the bottom of the preliminary league after losing to New Zealand and India.
The Ad-hocism prevalent in the PCB for the last three decades has destroyed the game in the country while no efforts have been made to develop the sport on scientific lines or groom the players to excel in the modern day game.
Abbasi, one of the most successful PCB Chairmen who successfully brought the ICC Cricket World Cups to Pakistan in 1987 and 1996 in joint collaboration with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), is pained by the current state of the game in the country.
Look at what our team has done in the Champions Trophy. It was such a golden opportunity for the PCB and the national team to showcase top-class cricket. This mega ICC event was crucial for us since all the top teams were competing here and the fans and experts from all around the world have converged in the country. But we have made a hash of it all by falling at the first hurdle.
Pakistan was clearly among the top three teams in the world then and we won most of our matches. We had several outstanding players in our team such as Javed Miandad, Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Abdul Qadir, and many others, who had a great stature and enjoyed a lot of respect in world cricket.
I feel so hurt to see that Pakistan is placed last in world cricket today as a team and we have no match-winners in the national side. Can you imagine Pakistan and India jointly hosting a World Cup today? But I pulled it off, not just once but twice, because there were great men and my dear friends Jagmohan Dalmiya and I S Bindra associated with the BCCI at that time. Together we snatched the World Cup from England and the ICC had to give us the hosting rights because our proposal was so brilliant and impactful
Outlining the reasons for Pakistan cricket’s rapid decline in the past two decades, Abbasi said “Ad-hocism coupled with a poor domestic cricket structure and nepotism have ruined the game.
When you have hand-picked PCB Chairmen who get appointed for political reasons and have no understanding of the game, how do you expect cricket to thrive? All those who have been at the helm of Pakistan cricket over the past 30 years have tinkered with the domestic cricket structure in their respective terms and have literally made a joke out of it.
Abbasi reminisced that, in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, Pakistan produced top-class players from our domestic cricket, so there was no reason to alter that. Even the club cricket was so strong in those days and produced fantastic players,” reminisced Abbasi. “But regretfully, almost every PCB head during the past two decades has tampered with the system and we are paying a heavy price for that today,” observed Abbasi.
The Pakistani as a nation is crazy about cricket and finds solace and excitement in the game which unites them like no other force. Unfortunately, we have deprived the fans of that flavour and quality in our cricket and they obviously feel cheated now.
Asked why in his opinion has India gone far ahead of Pakistan in cricket, Abbasi said they sincerely worked at developing the game and never tinkered with their domestic setup.
India established many cricket academies several years ago, in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, and New Delhi, which have contributed greatly in the grooming of their players. Their domestic structure is so well-entrenched, with the Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy still their premier tournaments. They comprise four-day cricket and have a very high standard where it is mandatory for all the players to compete.
Abbasi pointed out that Pakistan has only one state-of-the-art academy, the National Cricket Academy of the PCB, which is so underutilized and poorly managed. No grooming of the players is done there despite the world-class facilities available in NCA.
Some private academies are running in the country too but one does not get to see any remarkable cricketers being produced through them. The harsh truth is that we are lagging so much behind top teams and the modern-day game in Pakistan, I often wonder how could we ever catch up with that now.
