Wholesale changes continue to take place within the PCB as on Saturday Chairman Najam Sethi appointed former skipper Shahid Afridi as the interim head of the men’s national selection committee for the home series against New Zealand. In addition to this, Abdul Razzaq and Rao Iftikhar Anjum will also be a part of the tour-specific committee, while a member of the board’s management committee, Haroon Rashid, will act as the convener. While new appointments are the norm when there is a change in the management, the way it is being done and the accompanying rhetoric does raise some concerns.
Mr Sethi has expressed his utmost confidence in the newly-formed committee hoping that they will make brave and bold decisions despite the limited time. One must question the urgency of these appointments, especially considering how there was hardly a break between the England and New Zealand series. Such abrupt and radical changes to the entire board and team structure can be unsettling for a team that is already low on confidence.
While these appointments may prove to be successful and hopefully, they will for the sake of Pakistan cricket, their framing is perhaps not ideal and is too overtly political. Criticisms can be made of the previous management, especially in terms of how test cricket suffered, and how domestic pitches were not up to the mark. At the same time, the PSL flourished further, international teams returned to Pakistan, and efforts were made to help women’s cricket grow.
Therefore, this transition should not be termed as turning around the fortunes of Pakistan cricket. There is a need for continuity and efforts must be made to preserve the positive gains made over the past few years, instead of dismantling everything. Similarly, putting out statements that the new selection committee will be selecting the most deserving players in a meritocratic manner also implies that this was not being done earlier, which is unfair to a number of talented young players that were brought into the fold under the previous management. Perhaps, the best solution would be to insulate the management of the PCB from the broader political situation, something which has been promised by many governments only to never be fulfilled.