My second post is dedicated to my passion i.e. Cricket. In this post I’ll be talking about one of the best cricket teams in the world (or at least that used to be), i.e. Pakistan, regarding its current state of affairs and what can be done to improve it.
Having won the ICC T20 World cup in 2009, the current state of Pakistan Cricket board and its team is really bad. Pakistan in recent times has been marred by various controversies and terror attacks which had adversely affected the state of Cricket in Pakistan. Citing few is the change of its captains in the last year itself from Shoib Malik to Younis Khan, then to Mohammad Yousuf which again has raised some doubts after the recent Australian tour where Pakistan lost all the matches including 3 tests, 5 One-day matches and one T20, leading to 0-9 whitewash. Then resigning of its chief selector, dropping its Coach (Intikhab Alam) after the Australian series had done nothing good to improve the state of affairs. The poor state of domestic cricket infrastructure, bureaucracy is also contributing to its current state. As a result of all this, Pakistan has now being ranked 7th in test and ODI rankings both.
In my opinion, Pakistan Cricket Board should first list down the problems that it is facing and then try to find out the solutions of it. Problems regarding generating revenue (as PCB is on the verge of bankruptcy because of all the cancelled tours) or improving the infrastructure should be given prime importance. The attack on the SriLankan team last year has removed any last hopes for a home-series in near future. Even ICC stripped Pakistan of 2011 world-cup matches because of safety & security concerns. Few steps that can be taken are off shoring all the matches (may be to Dubai, or even US) which will boost the cricket sentiment & invigorate the sport itself. The Board do need to take some long term plans to revitalize Cricket in the country as there will be no international Cricket in near future, therefore the board need to focus on improving the present infrastructure of the domestic Cricket. Also Getting Pakistan players to play in domestic tournaments in their country would be another good way to keep their cricket system alive. This will also motivate youngsters to take this game as a career.
As i sign off.. i would like to leave some issues in the open for your contemplation as it will encourage discussion .... and will be a feature of all my future posts:
Whether ICC should help the board (financially or by some other means) to solve some of the above problems or not…..??
What steps should PCB take to improve the present state of condition..??
Whether Other Countries should step-in to resolve some matters or not…??
Ya, Pakistan needs an urgent rejuvenation unless which we'll continue to miss good competitions.
ReplyDeletenice post! It is such a sorry state of affairs! I don't even know if they can fight back to normalcy!
ReplyDeleteWell... PCB is truly seeing some of its worst days !!!
ReplyDeletePCB is been hit by 2 way sword.. firstly there are security issues coz of which they cant play in pak.. Plus whatever is left to play outside..internal team issues becomes a road block!!
So, its a tough game for PCB to recover and pity those awesome players who are finally effected because of all this.
nice one dude..the political scenario of Pakistan is in a mess..unless they do something about it..don't think the situation is gonna improve much!!
ReplyDeleteI guess offshoring and maybe privatizing of the board may help Pakistan! A very weird idea would be to outsource their entire cricket operations to India or another country! ha ha ha.... But then politics and religion should be taken apart from the sport for it to go forward. Same is the case with India - but we are still far better.
ReplyDelete@Soumyaranjan ~ Agreed Soumya that Pakistan do need urgent rejuvenation, but where it will come from ~ ICC, themselves, other country's boards....??
ReplyDelete@Himanshu ~ Thanks for the appreciation buudy, but to really improve their sorry state of affairs they do need take some drastic steps n help from icc is also required
@Toon_India ~ Thanks mate...!! The political Scenario is indeed in a mess there, but i think politics shud b separated from cricket itself, there shud b separate mgt. or influence of politics shud b less on cricket.
@Sharad ~ Yes indeed, PCB is witnessing its worst days nowadays regarding the whole bunch of problems they facing, but in your opinion what should PCB do..?? As a matter of fact, they have offered Waqar Younis, the post of Coach.
ReplyDelete@nemesis ~ Off-shoring is an obvious option that PCB has, but what else PCB can do more is important. I agree that Sports should be separate from politics and religion, but even in India, BCCI is headed by Sharad pawar who is a member of Parliament.
I cant b optimistic abt state of Pak cricket. Jus like India, Its directly connected with ppl n Politics. Until der gross mentality wont change, the nation will remain in dilemma and so does every sport body of tht nation. Solution is not in PCB, it stays outside in power corridor. Along with tht only India Cant earn them good money, which diplomacy is not allowing presently.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, i wud hold whole Pakistan Mindset for everything wrong goin in der nation n cricket in particular. Solution is not in eye sight.
good post mate...Pakistan will have to move to other venues till the time situation in their country improves..ICC should help them
ReplyDeletePakistan Cricket board has only one person to blame " The pakistan government" for not spring cleaning the terror camps bred in their own homeland.. once they do this Pakistan citizens will be in peace, United states, India will be in peace.. and surely Pakistan cricket board will finally be welcomed by the entire world and who knows BCCI may step in to help too.
ReplyDeleteThere is no other way... until they do that nobody will help them... Because The whole world has seen the interview of Parvez Musharraf agreeing to the fact that US aid was not used in development of pakistan citizens it was used to create armour against india.. Is unfortunate but only Pakistan can save pakistan.. I feel pity for the Pakistan Citizens and Cricket players.
Interesting Topic... Good Post Bro...
ReplyDeleteThis is true that Pakistan cricket is in a mess right now, but then i guess the govt has a major role to play in this, there incompetency in handling the security of the touring side has had a major impact.. apart from the internal tension and other politics.
I guess the best possible solution for Pak cricket is to uplift their game... they need to perform better than ever… I don’t think we should come to any conclusion with one forgettable tour.. they have enough talent in them to pull of some surprises…. Knowing ICC I don’t think they will be off any help, may be neutral venue can help…
Their condition today is kinda similar to the one SA faced long time ago, before bouncing back to international cricket with a Bang…. So all is not lost for Pak…. If they keep playing good competitive cricket they soon will be back…. Though for them any home series in the near future looks highly unlikely.
I really wana watch a tight well fought india vs Pak match.. been really long we had a good one.. the adrenal rush in such game is totally mind-blowing.. :)
@cheth ~ I very much agree with you chetan as the condition in Pakistan will only improve if "Pak govt." takes some appropriate steps to improve the political situation as well as situation regarding terrorism. If they do take some strict anti-terrorism measures, then and only then other countries will somehow agree to play in Pakistan and that will be a positive step forward but in my opinion that looks a distant future.
ReplyDelete@Saurangshu ~ Thanks for the appreciation buddy...!! Agreed with u regarding the important role that the govt. has to play in improving the condition of current state of affairs in Pak.
ReplyDeleteYes, their current condition can also be taken similar to what our Indian hockey team is facing i.e. if they play good against Pak (in world cup), the same enthusiasm develops, but if they start losing again, all hope & enthusiasm vanishes. This (not-winning matches)can be a possible reason for the current state of Indian Hockey.
The biggest problem with Pak cricket is unity amongst the player. The ego of senior player is so big that it hurts the team badly, When Younis was captain Afridi, Yousuf and Malik were blamed, then when Yousuf went to Australia as captain same thing happened. Till they have unity at the top this would continue. They need larger then life captain like Imran or Akram which unfortunately they do not have. They have great Raw talent but it all fizzles out with this internal fights.
ReplyDeleteI too,feel sorry for the Pak Cricket. Unfortunately the country is going through and very difficult time. Terrorism, bad financial situation and overall dangerous global image is responsible for their condition, but apart form the above reasons, their main enemy is their own ignorance to the fact that they are not concentrating on playing cricket and giving more opportunities to themselves to play more cricket. Its a attitude problem. Problem with both the countries cricket board and players. At a time, when they should support world most powerful cricket body (BCCI), so that they can return them some kind of favor, Pak is caught in age old rivalry with India. If BCCI decides to help Pak Cricket, they can make enough money for Pak Cricket (as well as for them). India Pak Series on any neutral venue will always be a full house and will have the highest TRPs. It is a known fact that most of the Pak players retired or current were making lots of money on India, but doing shows, commentary, and endorsements. Situation has change now after 26/11 but they these players would have came out and shown a positive attitude to Indian and Global audiences (and also to Paki people), they would have helped them selves and their cricket a lot.
ReplyDeletethe main issue in my views as i take cricket more of a political thing than a game when it comes to cricket in Pakistan.
ReplyDeletethe biggest issue with the team is management. Ijaz butt has been proved to be a flop manager abut as far as politics is concerned he is doing well by putting people like Javaid Miandad, Mohsin Kahn and Waqar Younis under the banner of PCB he has some how zipped there mouth by doing so as these people used to criticize the PCB activities now its there test what they do.
another thing which really bother me is the change of posts and seats rather than changing the faces, same people work on different seats after leaving one and big example is Wasim Bari.
to me the best thing to be done is to get strength from inside. change the management and the working body of PCB and bring some professional cricketer, an honest and patriot and some one who has management experience. in my views in the presence of Majid Khan there is no one else who deserve to have the seat of PCB head.
now come to team there must be a sense of being a part of team in every player there are few people in team who are really notorious for keeping other on the toes and one of the latest arrival in the team has become bold enough that he has complains with the captain which he says directly to I.Butt.
Younis Khan no doubt have been great captain and he is honest with the team and the way he was forced to leave the captaincy was really sad (my post says all the background game over it http://mylandpakistan.blogspot.com/2009/11/lights-camera-and-action.html)
at this time a risk should be taken by sweeping all the problem figures out of the team and give this team a captain who can lead from the front and to me Afridi can do it and he has proven time and again that he got the ability to be a captain.
there must be a sense among the team members that they are know because of team and team is something permanent which will remain there a member of the team has a limited life. thats what we all have to realize.
and yes its true that domestic cricket structure need attention and improvement to provide some good backup players on the bench.
and now the fact remains that shall ICC and other teams, come in to help the things i think when the internal things will be strong it will be sensible to ask ICC to help and other countries to cooperate and some how Cricket in Pakistan get another life (here i mean International cricket as i am dieing to go to watch an international cricket game here in Qaddafi stadium).
A good perspective Akhil, though I am one of those freak Indians who doesn't like or follow cricket at all, the problems in that country are so grave that unless those are tackled, leave alone cricket, nothing can work. The country needs to reboot. That's the only permanent solution.
ReplyDelete@Azlan ~ Thank u very much for sharing your opinion my friend. You rightly said, first the problem within Pak has to be tackled either the political one or the Pak mgt. one and then only ICC would be able to help PCB.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that appointing Shahid Afridi as captain could prove fruitful and wud b beneficial for PCB, as he too was involved in the recent Ball-tampering issue, instead of him, a young player like Akmal or even Msbah-ul-haq can given this opportunity.
Right now, PCB has taken some drastic steps regarding fining the senior players and imposing an indefinite ban. on them. Hope the situation improves as the T20 world cup is coming.
@Sanjay ~ Thank u very much for sharing your opinion Sanjay, yes i think the political situation as well as issues related to terrorism shud be given the utmost priority to improve the given state of conditions in Pak.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know how should I give you thanks! I am totally stunned by your article. You saved my time. Thanks a million for sharing this article.
ReplyDelete