How PCB sabotaged Pakistan’s T20 World Cup 2024 campaign

2022 runner-ups Pakistan have been knocked out of the tournament in the group stage of the T20 World Cup 2024. Pakistan, who came into the tournament in all sorts of drama, fell to an agonising exit after rain washed out the Group A match between the USA and Ireland at Fort Lauderdale in Florida on Friday, 14 June.

Famed for some terrific luck in the ICC tournaments – popularly dubbed as ‘Qudrat ka Nizam’ – things seemed to have gone horribly wrong for Pakistan as even the rain Gods decided to forsake the team’s cause. Pakistan captain Babar Azam was slammed left, right and centre by the fans and former Pakistan players for the team’s horrible showing at the World Cup. To be fair, Pakistan lost to the USA in their tournament opener – a team that is playing the T20 World Cup for the first time.

The team lost to India despite some heroic efforts by their bowlers in New York. The game was a new low for Pakistan as they failed to chase down the target after bundling out Rohit Sharma’s side for just 119 runs.

Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Mohsin Naqvi, sitting at the Nassau County Stadium in New York, informally spoke to the reporters present at the game and made a bold statement – that it was time for him to do a major surgery in Pakistan cricket.

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What surgery?

If Mohsin Naqvi introspected, he probably would realise that PCB would do well to reflect on the build-up to the T20 World Cup, and how they, and they alone, were responsible for sabotaging Pakistan’s campaign in the tournament.

HERE’S THE TIMELINE

World Cup 2023 Drama

Pakistan cricket were in the doldrums after their group-stage exit in the ODI World Cup 2023. After leading the side to semi-finals and finals in back to back T20 World Cups, Babar Azam was sacked by the Pakistan Cricket Board under the leadership of Zaka Ashraf. To put it in politically correct terms, Babar Azam ‘quit’ captaincy and the reigns were handed to Shaheen Shah Afridi in the white-ball formats.

Along with Babar, the Pakistan coaching staff was let go. Mohammad Hafeez took charge as the director of cricket, while Wahab Riaz was named as the head of the selection committee. The PCB, at the time were so conscious of their image that they appointed Salman Butt as the consultant to Wahab Riaz and sacked him within hours of the announcement.

These were the early signs of PCB going back on their word, the second they thought that the public opinion was against them.

“Salman Butt isn’t on any PCB panel. For me, he is a good cricketing mind who understands cricket and has been covering domestic cricket for the past 2-3 years. He was made my consultant just to get his opinion, based on which some media houses and people started doing propaganda,” Wahab was quoted as saying in a press conference.

“As a chief selector, it’s my decision as to who will work with me and whose support I need. But people started discussing nepotism and dosti, due to which I am reverting this decision. I have already spoken to Salman Butt and told him that he cannot be a part of my team,” he had added at the time.

Australia Tour and Sacking of Mohammad Hafeez

A new Pakistan team under the captaincy of Shan Masood (Tests) and Shaheen Shah Afridi (ODIs and T20Is) toured Australia and New Zealand. In both series, Pakistan were hammered.

The Test team lost to WTC winners Australia and under Shaheen, Pakistan were beaten 4-1 away from home in the T20I series against New Zealand. The final T20I of this series was played on January 21 and just two weeks later, the PCB saw another change in leadership. Mohsin Naqvi was appointed as the 37th chairman of the board and once again Pakistan went back into the same rabbit hole.

Ideally speaking, a team would like to give stability to their players just 3 months away from the T20 World Cup. However, Naqvi decided that the best course of action was to sack Shaheen as the captain and get back Babar, under whom Pakistan looked at a loss for ideas in ODI World Cup 2023.

Worse, Naqvi also sacked Mohammad Hafeez, one of the most legendary players on the T20 circuit with close to 8000 runs to his name.

The former Pakistan all-rounder vowed to expose the Pakistan side under the captaincy of Babar Azam and slammed them on national TV, alleging that under Babar and former coach Mickey Arthur, the team had not focused on fitness at all.

Hafeez’s rant was aimed after cricket fans had criticised Pakistan’s fielding standards and knack of getting injured.

“When we went to Australia, I told the players to take care of their fitness levels. I also asked the trainer about the fitness of the players. He told me a shocking thing that six months ago, the captain (Babar Azam) and Director of Cricket (Mickey Arthur) told me to stop checking the players on the fitness parameters and let them play the way they want,” Mohammad Hafeez had said on A Sports.

“When the fat levels of the players were checked, the skin fold of all of them was high – for most players it was 1.5 times the limit. They were unfit and some of them couldn’t complete a 2 KM trial run. The decision taken 6 months back overruled the set criteria for fitness. You will suffer defeats if the fitness is like that,” Mohammad Hafeez had added on the show.

FAILURE TO LEARN

Pakistan cricket has been called out by the fans for their age-old approach. Under Babar, him and Mohammad Rizwan anchored at the top and Pakistan huffed and puffed to 160-170 totals. They would then hope for their world-class bowling attack to come clutch and rescue the team from imminent disaster.

PCB had a chance to correct the course, but they once again backed Babar and Rizwan to open the batting and handed responsibility to others to clean up the openers’ mess.

The likes of Saim Ayub, Azam Khan, Mohammad Haris were backed, but hesitantly. A failure for them meant that they would be sacked from the side, while Babar and Rizwan’s poor outings in big matches were completely ignored.

“Jab se Babar Azam captain hain, hum boht mediocre, sorry for using this word, teams se haar rahe hain (ever since Babar became captain, we have been losing to mediocre teams),” Ahmad Shehzad lashed out on a TV show after Pakistan’s exit from the T20 World Cup 2024.

“The kind of progress that was going on, these things were on the cards and bound to happen some day,” he further added.

SURGERY NEEDED

PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi is right, a surgery is needed in Pakistan’s cricketing culture. The surgery is needed right at the grassroots and it needs to finish straight at the top, where the policymakers make their decisions.

Shoaib Malik, someone with the most T20 runs amongst Pakistan cricketers, alleged that in the domestic tournaments, upcoming players did not have match-awareness. Shoaib argued that this was down to selection of the wrong players. He felt that Pakistan did not have a dearth of talent, but players were being selected on personal relationships, likes and dislikes.

The PCB and the stakeholders of Pakistan cricket have a big task at their hand.

The T20 World Cup 2024, is indeed a sad phase for the side, who once did not depend on weather, on the results of other teams to qualify for the latter stages of the tournament. In particular, PCB needs to have a reassessment of their structure, keeping their personal agendas and interests aside.

Because, as legendary Wasim Akram said in one of his emotional outbursts during the T20 World Cup,

“Enough is enough, we need changes now. We need to bring in new players, 6-7 of them. If we have to lose, we will lose with the new kids. We will back them and make a fighting team,” said Akram.

Pakistan have almost a year till the next ICC tournament, which will be held at home. The onus will be on PCB, on Mohsin Naqvi to create a modern team, with a modern outlook, one that does not train in an army base, three months away from a World Cup.