The downfall of cricket in Pakistan has not happened all of a sudden; it has occurred owing to a plenty of problems at the grassroots level.
Since 2000, Pakistan have had 14 coaches, including Javed Miandad, Richard Pybus, Intikhab Alam and Waqar Younis, who served more than once.
After the 1999 World Cup failure, England-born Richard Pybus became Pakistan’s first foreign coach. After that Geoff Lawson and Dav Whatmore served the country. Mickey Arthur is the latest foreign national to be given the job.
Is changing the coach enough to improve the performance of the team? Obviously not. Domestic cricket structure, players’ power, fitness problems, weak captain are the issues that need immediate attention.
Whatmore had a lot of experience. Under him Sri Lanka won the 1996 World Cup but he failed to change Pakistan’s fortunes.
It will be a really tough task for Arthur to lift the ninth-ranked ODI side, which suffers from fitness problems as well as grouping.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is confident that under Arthur Pakistan will get back their lost glory. Arthur himself is positive. In his first interview, he said that he would not compromise on discipline, fitness and fielding standards. He also warned that he doesn’t want any selfish players in the team and every player will have to play for the team.
Arthur’s experience as the coach of South Africa and Australia may not be of much help to him while coaching Pakistan because it is a different thing altogether. The players of Australia and South Africa come up through a vastly different cricket environment in which fitness is given utmost importance and fielding standards are impressive.
Arthur must change the batting style of Pakistani batsmen. Pakistan batsmen lack the ability to show aggression in power-play and keep wickets in hand for the death overs. The new coach should shortlist players who have the flexibility to play the modern game for a long period.
In spite of having enormous cricketing talent, Pakistan have not achieved the standing in the game many experts believe the country should have gained and maintained consistently.
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Our domestic structure is not up to international standards and has failed to provide quality players who can compete with other top teams and handle the pressure in crunch situations.
Players who score record numbers of runs and take wickets regularly in domestic cricket fail to deliver the goods when chances are provided to them in international matches.
The Board never provides the opportunity to domestic players to play their trophy matches on fast and grassy tracks. Every country prepares its pitches according to its own team’s strengths, but Pakistan is most unfortunate in that it doesn’t utilise its strength according to its cricketing capabilities.
Except Muhammad Hafeez, Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq, Pakistani batsmen have been failing to score consistently. The three players are near retirement. Therefore, the management should start finding their replacements.