The breakneck speed at which cricket has evolved was evident as Pakistan, freshly minted as the number one team in the world in the traditional Test format, was thrashed 4-1 in the ODI series and remains rooted at ninth in the world rankings. We are last among all established cricketing nations in the ranking and even below minnows Bangladesh. As things stand, Pakistan will not get automatic entry into the 2018 World Cup and will have to battle the likes of Ireland, UAE and Zimbabwe in a playoff. Should we not show drastic improvement by then, failing to make it to the World Cup is not inconceivable. The biggest problem Pakistan cricket faces is its archaic approach to batting. We still cling on to the tactics which won us the 1992 World Cup: to start slowly and keep wickets in hand to hit out at the end. The problem with that, as England showed in smashing a world record 444 against us, is that the rest of the world goes hell for leather from ball one and never stops. Our average scores of 250 have little chance of being successfully defended in an age of flat batting pitches, fielding restrictions and short boundaries.
Captain Azhar Ali may have consistently scored runs but did so at far too slow a pace to help us reach winning scores. His position as skipper, and indeed his place in the team, may be under doubt. England greatly benefited from all their bowlers being more than capable batsmen while we persist with specialist bowlers and have few all-rounders. Our fielding is, as always, a shambles. But we should resist blaming the players for our ODI woes. The fault lies in a dysfunctional system which has done nothing to identify the specialists needed for this very specialised form of the game. Back home, we have yet again changed around the domestic structure and added a new domestic T20 tournament which reduced the total number of teams and ensured the monopoly Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi have over the sport would be maintained. We may want to consider not just specialist players but specialist coaches too for the shorter formats of the game and an emphasis on qualities such as bowling at the death and clearing the ropes, which are not as necessary in Test matches. As justifiably proud as we are at being top of the pile in Tests, we need to ensure the stigma of being bottom of the heap in ODIs is soon removed.