In all the formats of the game of cricket, i.e. T20, ODI and Tests, our cricket team’s performance in international matches is gradually slipping from bad to worse; and now we are respectively ranked at 6th, 7th and 8th positions.
However, the most horrible reality is that the 1992 World Cup ODI champion team can’t enter the 2019 ODI World Cup competition, without playing the qualifying round.
In this regard, the alarming issue is not just the defeats of our men’s, ladies and Under 19 teams but the huge margin of defeats, like our team getting out in 40-45 overs and losing Test matches virtually in 2 1/2 days.
Here, although, the PCB tried to stem the rot by bringing in high profile and highly paid coaches, appointing senior cricketers at the helm of the National Cricket Academies (NCA) and selection committees and increasing the remuneration and travel facilities of the players. Yet, the PCB did not address the main issue; mainly, because the entire set up of the PCB has failed to correctly diagnose the real disease, afflicting our cricketing structure; and also because, no one in the PCB, wants to touch the hornets’ nest of the domestic cricketing structure.
Moreover, some wise men also wrongly think that NCAs are the factories to produce world class players. NCA’s cannot produce players, who are born at school level cricket; and trained/groomed in the clubs and at various higher levels of domestic cricket. The mother of our problem is our domestic structure, which is adversely afflicted by greed, politics and nepotism. The PCB’s flawed system is standing and depending on the votes of its affiliated clubs, districts and regions. Hence, the status quo fully suits the PCB.
The entry at a first class level should require so much effort that after playing first class cricket in Pakistan, a player, when he enters the international level, should not feel any difference in domestic and international games.
To achieve this high level of domestic standards, the PCB should invest maximum money in infrastructure, producing world level umpires, higher standard of playing equipment, increasing remuneration of players and upgrading travelling, boarding and lodging facilities.
I have written these facts and proposed a solution for our cricketing decline only after years of discussions with scores of very senior cricket players, administrators, media persons and journalists, who have a consensus on the need of re-vamping of our entire domestic cricketing structure, which is currently only serving the vested interests of few persons; and also killing the abundant talent of the budding cricketers of Pakistan.
SYED NAYYAR UDDIN AHMAD,
Lahore, February 2.