Save cricket for Pakistan’s sake

ISLAMABAD: Instead of bringing smile to the faces of this cricket-loving nation, the Pakistan cricket has started adding to their pain — thanks to the politicization of this national sport. More seriously, we are fast losing this game that unites the nation.
The Pakistan cricket team’s shameful performance in the World Cup is not all about the eleven boys, who failed pathetically in two of the three areas — batting and bowling. In actuality, it is the consequence of how cricket has been ruined by the cronies of successive rulers.
And it all started with the appointment of blue-eyed boys as cricketing bosses one after the other. Ignoring the professionals, successive rulers bet on their friends and favourites to run the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). They instead started ruining it even if they did not intend to.
Consequently, despite enormous cricketing talent, we have been made a laughing stock. In Friday’s quarterfinal with Australia, our batsmen bitterly failed yet again ensuring that it should be a one-sided affair, yet a few bowlers, particularly Wahab Riaz, tried their best to turn the tables on the Aussies. But the team’s poor fielding and dropped catches at critical stages made it an easy win for Australia and yet another humiliating defeat for Pakistan.
The unprofessional approach of most of our team members was evident from what they displayed on the ground. They even surprised the commentators some of whom were shocked over the easy catches being dropped in a crucial do-or-die match.
Thanks to Misbahul Haq and Sarfaraz Ahmad otherwise Pakistan deserved to be even below the UAE and Ireland. While playing against West Indies, Pakistan’s four top players had gone to the pavilion with only one run on the scoreboard. Thus we made history but for wrong reasons.
Six catches were dropped in the same match whereas our bowlers gave over 90 runs in last five overs. And when it comes to Pak-India competition, we proved even in this World Cup that we were no match to our arch-rival.
Out of sheer disappointment and frustration, many cricket-lovers commented on the social media that the Pakistan team had played like club cricket. I believe, they were worse. It looked like a street cricket lacking professionalism and responsibility.
Unfortunately, the Pakistan team has been doing this in the past too and is thus known as “unpredictable”. Despite their individual talent, they can’t handle bad situations and don’t read conditions. Every player gets into the ground with his own strategy and follows his own game. Ultimately, they produce disastrous results.
Going through all this time and again, the cricket lovers start cursing the like of Younises, Afridis, Akmals and others. In fact, the blame lies somewhere else. We curse the product but ignore the fact that the fault lies with the factory and the makers’ ability and vision. To improve the quality of product, the factory needs to be overhauled by those who understand the subject well.
During the PPP government, the then sports minister once went to former president and sought to change the then chairman PCB Muhammad Ejaz But to save Pakistan cricket from touching further lows. In response, he was told that Ejaz would continue even if the game was ruined.
But later we saw more disastrous cricketing bosses. The incumbent Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was also warned over handing the country’s cricket over to his friends, but he too ignored all such warnings. Musharraf also left the cricket’s fate in the hands of his friends and favourites.
The cricket talent here is being killed by unprofessional people and opportunists. Few good performances or flukes may continue to bring few wins but the need of the hour is to focus on the real cause of the ill.
Cricket direly needs de-politicization. Let professionals and experts overhaul the system without any external influences. Dissolve the Cricket Board and cleanse it of mafias plaguing the game. And above all, discretion of rulers to appoint their favourites as cricket bosses must be curbed to save this strong bond of unity for Pakistan from complete collapse.