NEW DELHI: Former Pakistan captain Ramiz Raja has described the national team as a “rudderless ship” after they were whitewashed 0-3 in the ODI series and beaten convicingly in the only T20I on their ongoing tour of Bangladesh.
Ramiz told Cricinfo he was disappointed by the “lack of direction” and the lack of “fresh ideas” from the PCB.
“They have gone to the players who have put a mute button on Pakistan cricket for a long time,” Ramiz said. “There’s no freshness of ideas or direction. It’s the same old logic to keep wickets in hand and then go hard in the last 10 overs. This is a throwback to the 80’s and 90’s stuff. I was hoping that the situation would improve but there is hardly any new direction given by the new coaching staff.”
Ramiz, who is currently in India as a commentator for the IPL, believes Pakistan need to urgently set up a T20 league on similar lines as that “environment will help the players understand the game better.”
“That (a T20 league) will really help them to concentrate on the game and play the game in the way that it should be played,” he said. “I hope the Pakistan Cricket Board works on it and somehow makes it happen. If not in Pakistan, then in the middle east. It’s not about money, it’s about the environment that Pakistan cricket so badly needs to share that experience and to learn from the greats of the game.”
Describing the series in Bangladesh as “embarrassing” and the “lowest point in our international history”, Ramiz said the outcome was the culmination “of a badly thought out strategy.” According to him, Pakistan are no longer producing the same assembly line of talent as they did in the past, and even the players coming through are not being “used properly” by the team management.
“I’m deeply concerned because I was hoping
that some of the younger players would step up but they weren’t good enough,” Ramiz said. “Timid is the right word, boxed in mentality, which is not expanding your range in T20 or 50-overs cricket. It’s the way they’re brought up.
“They have technical and mental issues. They don’t know how to construct a knock; those who know it don’t have the technical know-how. Some of them are suppressed by the environment because they are not sure whether they’ll play the next game. The overall strategy needs to improve. The coaching staff has to come to their rescue because gone are the days when Pakistan would have a well rounded and talented side.”