Nabeel A. Adeel
The below average performance of Pakistan cricket team in the 2024 T20 world cup has been extremely disappointing for Pakistan cricket fans. Every cricket fan in Pakistan is trying to understand the causes and get a grasp on what happened. Almost all of Pakistan’s former greats from Wasim Akram to Waqar Younis and Inzamam have come out in the media and offered opinions about how to address this mess that Pakistan cricket has become. In this brief article I focus on two immediate short term fixes that PCB must put in place to get this team back on track. The long-term fixes of investing in and improving domestic cricket and school/college cricket and putting a stop to politically driven PCB chairman appointments are also extremely critical but will hopefully be a topic for another discussion.
Captaincy: Pakistan’s first key problem is Babar Azam’s captaincy. Over the past 4 years he has been captain of Pakistan but in most clutch matches and situations he seems to make the same mistakes repeatedly. From selection before the match to smartness in key moments during a match, Babar is found wanting. Shadab’s consistent selection in the 11 when he is totally out of form is a great example of a situation where Babar has not found a solution to the problem that has been in front of him for the last two years now. Persisting with an out of form Hassan Ali in 2022 cost Pakistan a world cup final spot, again Babar did not make the critical call to sit Hassan Ali out of the semifinal or the game before. Similarly, when it comes to winning key moments in a game, Babar consistently lets other teams off the hook. Most times when a new batsman comes in, Babar keeps the field open, does not keep any attacking fields and lets the other team’s batsmen settle in and take the game away from Pakistan. Often Babar is thinking about completing 20 or 50 overs versus thinking of getting the opposition out. Asia Cup game against India on a spicy wicket with India 66 for 4 comes to mind where one or two wickets using pacers would have finished India off, but Babar went to his spinners who did not get any help from the wicket and so India ended up getting 266 runs. Looking at this World Cup, the errors in the game against USA were really schoolboy errors that the whole cricket fraternity has been mocking for the last few days. The execution from Harris Rauf in the last over against USA was bad but still the plan from captain was also horrendous. If the plan was to bowl a yorker then no one would understand why mid off was in the circle; simple cricketing sense would say that with the plan to bowl Yorkers, mid-off, mid-on, third man and deep fine leg are fielders that must be back. The reason captaincy is being brought up here as the first problem is because even if a captain has 10 special players like Wasim Akarm and Virat Kohli, but his captaincy mindset and field placements are defensive and he is not smart about his batting and bowling line ups, his team can never win a big tournament. Captains who win big cricket tournaments are smart tacticians who show leadership in key junctures and that’s what enables them to win big trophies. MS Dhoni, Eoin Morgan, Steve Waugh, and Imran khan all are names who were smart leaders on the field and who stood up for the players they wanted in the team. Yuvraj Singh was a part time bowler, but MS Dhoni used him smartly in 2011 world cup and he took 15 wickets at an economy of 5. The point here is that a good captain can take performance out of even ordinary players, but the captain must define roles and stand up for the players he wants in the team.
The immediate solution to Pakistan’s white ball captaincy problem is Mohammad Rizwan. Rizwan has consistently shown with Multan Sultans that he can gel a team, get performance out of average players and lead teams to remarkable success. One trophy and two runners up awards in 3 seasons and a 66.67 win percentage, way ahead of any other PSL captain, is a testament to his leadership abilities. Besides Multan Sultans, Rizwan has won the national T20 cup as a captain and shown leadership capabilities in clutch situations in domestic cricket and for Pakistan. His average is over 50 against India in T20s and two of his 50s have led to Pakistan winning against India recently. His ability to handle pressure of big matches is visible in his numbers and demeanor on the field. Changing a captain frequently is never a good thing but with Babar it is obvious that he has not learned on the job, and he continues to make the same mistakes. Giving Rizwan the captaincy will serve PCB well because he has been a successful captain in PSL and domestic cricket. He can bring this team together and my prediction is that under his captaincy Pakistan can win a T20 world cup trophy.
Selection: Absurd Selection is the second big problem Pakistan faces and PCB must sort this out immediately. The fundamental criterion for selection must be Pakistan domestic cricket and not PSL. By domestic I mean players must perform in 4-day Quaid e Azam trophy for a certain period before they can be selected for Pakistan’s T20 side. There can be some exceptions but generally a player having gone through a few years of first class 4-day cricket will always be more ready for the pressure that international cricket brings. All of India’s T20 players have played Ranji Trophy for a considerable period and similarly most top English and Australian T20 players have come through by playing first class 4 day cricket. But in Pakistan we bring players into the team that have one good PSL season, these players are usually not ready for international cricket and so they end up being exposed. This not only hurts Pakistan’s performance but also devalues domestic 4-day cricket which is the real academy for producing cricketers. Looking at the current T20 team, players like Azam khan, Usman Khan and even to an extent Saim Ayub, they have not gone through at least 2-4 years of full 4-day first class cricket. So, their underperformance should not surprise anyone. Pakistan should look to form the core of its middle order batting with players like Saud Shakeel, Shan Masood, Abdullah Shafique, Agha Salman and Mohammad Harris. With Babar, Rizwan and Fakhar in top 3 or 4, the rest of the batting spots from 4-6 need to be occupied by proper batters from the names above. One can make an argument that none of these players is a big hitter except maybe Harris, but Pakistan needs to understand that on flat pitches these players who have solid techniques can score faster runs and on tricky surfaces and pressure situations these batters have a better chance of survival as compared to someone like an Usman or Azam. On the bowling front no one has understood why Abrar was not given a go. Abrar and Usama Mir are the bowlers Pakistan should be looking to field in their 11 as spinners. Aamer Jamal is an all-rounder that Pakistan must look to put in their 15. The PCB selection committee must be held accountable for this disastrous T20 world cup. No one can understand why they did not send one proper middle order batsman in the squad. Changing of PCB leadership and the selection committee every few months has had a terrible impact on the team performance. Analyzing the politics that leads to consistent PCB chairmanship changes and the awful impact it has on the team is a subject for another day but in immediate future a change in captaincy as well as sensible selections and selection policies must be put in place to resurrect the future of this team.
The writer has followed Pakistan cricket closely for over 30 years, has won multiple top division league championships in USA as a player and captain, played college cricket in Pakistan, and is a university badminton coach at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia USA.
