Pakistan is a land where the elite rule and the less privileged seek opportunity of mere survival. It is not a surprise, then, that the state of Pakistan's most beloved game, cricket, is also no different. Even though cricket is nothing short of a religion to us Pakistanis, yet, sadly, it is struggling to shine the way it once used to. There are many people to blame and many fingers to point. This game of hide and seek has been played for as long as I can remember and has borne little success.
It is nothing but natural that the name of the Pakistan Cricket Board, or the PCB, comes to mind when pointing out the ones responsible for the game's decline. All the problems lead directly or indirectly to the blunders made by the PCB. The first blunder, always, is the appointment of its chairman. For the last 5 to 8 years or so, people with very little experience and cricketing knowledge have been appointed as chairmen of the board. This trend started way back in 2008 when Ijaz Butt was selected as the chairman of the board. He was followed by Zaka Ashraf, another man with no cricketing experience at all. Although the tenure of Zaka Ashraf was much better than expected, yet it didn't last long as Najam Sethi was "appointed" as the chairman of the board in 2013. Sethi, being a journalist had little clue of how the board was to be managed. So it was natural that such a "silly" appointment was to bring nothing but instability to the board. As years passed by, the political divide within the PCB grew, and before we knew it, the same trend leaked into the team.
When such politics breeds inside and outside of the team, how can one expect the selection of players on merit? It is inevitable that talents would be ignored by the selectors as they have been for the past 30 years or so. Regarding this issue, Imran Khan, the only Pakistani captain to win a World Cup, said: "Back in '92 I fought with the selectors to select Inzamam-ul-Haq in the World Cup squad". He further went on to say: "I asked the selectors why they had ignored him for so long and surprisingly, most of them replied, 'We had tried him. But he wasn't up to the mark. He wasnt international quality.'" Not surprisingly, Inzamam became one of the key members in the World Cup winning squad of 1992. He also went on to become Pakistan's leading run-scorer. The selections of other legends particularly Wasim and Waqar were no different.
Looking back at history it seems that the members of the PCB "get paid to ignore raw talent" and they have lived up to their tainted reputation to this day. Even though many talented cricketers in Pakistan have brilliant domestic records, yet they haven't been "given a go" by the governing body.
Selecting the right people for the right job is a must if we are to start the "Golden Era" once more. After the dreadful World Cup in Australia the board looks to be in the process of "rebuilding" once more. It's nice to see the PCB finally having confidence in the young guns of the nation. For the tour against Bangladesh, the youngsters have been given a great opportunity to shine in all formats of the game.
Babar Azam, The right handed batsman from Lahore has proven time and again that he is a prodigy. With an average of 35.00 in first class and a very healthy average of 47.90 in List A cricket, the former U-19 Captain has been nothing but unlucky for not being included in the national team, a team which requires some serious stability in its extremely fragile batting order.
Sami Aslam, is also an opener who is worthy of playing for the green shirts. He has more than impressive averages in First Class and List A: 37.88 and 49.60 respectively. Such is the skill of Sami, that he is the all-time leading run scorer in U-19 ODIs.
Mohammad Rizwan is another wicketkeeper batsman who has been ignored time and again, previously. He, too, has a unique record to his name. He was the 3rd highest run getter in this year's pentangular cup behind Azhar Ali and Nasir Jamshed.
Talents come and go, sometimes they score, sometimes they shock, sometimes they fail. But it is the job of the Board not to "meet and eat" but to "find and polish" such amazing cricketers who have the potential to bring Pakistan back to its previous best. They could well be the missing pieces in the puzzle and if the governing bodies get their act straight, Pakistan could very well dominate world cricket once again and that too, with style. We are a cricket crazy nation. This green shirt means everything to us Pakistanis. And we want to be in the spotlight once again.