Way forward for the Pakistani Cricket – Ruthless Accountability

It really pains to write that Sarfaraz Ahmad’s leadership during 2019 tour of England (14 ODI matches & one T20 match) was neither, inspirational nor, motivational. He utterly failed to lead by example and with his own performance. In fact, leaving aside being a captain, his recent stats reflects that he can not be included in the national team, even on his batting abilities.

In the historical list of Pakistani cricket captains, he will be in a strong competition for the lowest position. Even his batting in the champions trophy final & other matches was at the mercy of opponent team’s fielders, dropping dolly catches offered by Sarfaraz.

Sarfaraz Ahmad looks perfect manifestation of the idiom “every person rises to his level of incompetence”, but then so do many others, in our national cricket set up.

Neither, the abandoned match vs the Sri Lankan team, nor, any other factor, except the timid, fearful, lost minded and negative approach leadership style of Sarfaraz Ahmad, was the singular reason; today our team is out of the CWC19 semifinals.

The other major factor of the failure in the CWC19 was the uncalled for presence and wrong influence of the Chief Selector, who was allowed by the Chairman & the MD PCB to sit over the head of the captain. Nowhere in the world, chief Selector is imposed over the team management like PCB did with Inzamam ul Haq.

This proves that the Chairman and the MD PCB were not professionally fit for their responsibilities, as head of the national cricket board, where they themselves looked to be totally overwhelmed by the chief selector.

The moment Inzamam was detached from the players, Pakistani team won all their remaining matches against the teams of South Africa, New Zealand, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

As such, the Chairman & the MD PCB must take the ultimate responsibility for the failures of our team, which also badly shattered the World Cup dream of the nation; thus both these honourable gentlemen should immediately submit their resignations, failing which, the remaining members of the Board of Governors of the PCB, may move a motion of no confidence, against both the Chairman and the MD of the PCB.

However, if no one moves from the BoG of the PCB then the Patron in Chief of the PCB Mr. Imran Khan is earnestly requested to order a high level Judicial Inquiry to be conducted by a Honourable Judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, to minutely investigate the causes of the national disgrace, caused by our cricket team, by way of the lower than pathetic performances [specially against matches with the West Indian {105 all out in 21.4 overs which was overhauled in 13.4 overs}, Australian and Indian teams] in the CWC19 to fix the responsibility over the concerned individuals, for further necessary and punitive actions, by the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

This proposed high powered judicial commission may also inquire about the overseas and Pakistani assets and wealth in banks of A to Z employees (including contractual/honorary employees) and cricket players affiliated with (directly or indirectly) or contracted by the PCB and serving during the period of 1st January 2008 to 5th July 2019. It is also requested that if formed by the PM this proposed high powered judicial commission may minutely look into the total expenses of ALL PCB officials who toured between Pakistan and England during the period our team visited there from April 2019 till the end of the World Cup in July 2019 and compare it with the expenses of the total number of players who went to England.

Moreover, the proposed judicial commission may also demand answers from the concerned persons of the following questions:

1. Who was responsible to drop Sarfraz Ahmad (when he desperately wanted to play and consequently his leadership role was undermined and confidence shattered just before the World Cup) from the team which lost 0-5 in series against the Australian team played in the UAE during March 2019.

2. Why Inzamam covered up and side tracked the team’s pathetic performance of losing by 0-5 in the series vs Australia by putting up absurd, irrelevant and non professional reason that our team’s performance was not that bad as reflected by the 0-5 result, because Pak team scored (in the five matches) a total of 1328 runs in comparison with the Australian cumulative score of 1436 runs which was just 108 runs short in the series. This argument was put up to deliberately mislead the nation from the fact that as happened in the first match our team batted first and scored 280/5 which was over hauled by the Australians by scoring 281/2. Obviously it was not a competition of scoring total runs in 50 overs and other team was not required to bat after achieving the target of 281 provided by the Pakistanis.

The above example proves the ill intentions of the Chief Selector and the team management to hood wink the nation from their own incompetencies and failures.

3. When the Prime Minister Mr. Imran Khan issued direct and open advice to Sarfaraz Ahmad, well in time, before the match against India, to bat first after winning the toss (except if the PITCH was wet) who forced Sarfaraz Ahmad to ignore the prudent and 24-Karat advice of the PM? Latest data of the 41 CWC19 first round matches out of 45 matches (4 washed out) proves the advice of Mr. Imran Khan was very prudent and on Dot, wherein, 27 out of 14 teams batting first did win their matches, which comes to 65.85% success rate.

4. When PCB is incurring huge expenses (in foreign currency) on the appointment of professional coaches for the every aspect of the game i.e., batting, bowling and fielding, plus a head coach for devising planning and strategy of our team (who also possessed the unprecedented powers of being the chairman of the tour selection committee by side lining the team manager) why and who allowed from the PCB, for the Chief Selector to be with the team on every foreign visit to let down and interfere with the authority of the coaches; and the captain (proposed judicial commission should also verify how many crores of amount was paid to the chief selector during his entire tenure, on account of his salary, perks, TA/DA and all other related expenses).

5. The proposed judicial commission should also investigate the ill motives of not selecting Muhammad Rizwan, who scored two centuries in two matches against the Australians in March 2019 and passed the fitness test with the highest marks; and the questionable intentions in sending back Abid Ali from England who was also selected as a second wicket keeper?

6. The proposed judicial commission should also verify the medical records/documents of Shadab Khan and Muhammed Amir, who were declared by the PCB suffering from Hepatitis and Chicken Pox respectively.

7. All the documents and records should also be verified for the reasons of allowing Shoaib Malik to take a break of 10 days from the tour of England to visit back Pakistan. Moreover, why and on which basis, he was selected to play ODI World Cup after a gap of 12 years, when his batting average in England in 23 innings of all previous tours was just 13.6 runs and why he failed in the World Cup with batting average of 2.66 runs?

8.Who decided to drop Haris Suhail from few early matches of the World Cup?

9. On which basis and performance Asif Ali (not considered vs SA series in January 2019 and Australian series in March 19) was selected and Ehsan Ali, Musa Khan, M Nawaz and Omar Khan were not considered at all?

10. When Wahab Riaz was not considered for even a single ODI match [for about two years] after June 2017 final match of the Champions Trophy, under which mysterious circumstances he was suddenly selected, specially when the Head Coach had earlier Twitted stating clearly that Wahab was not included in his planning for future matches?

The best and easiest way for the Pakistani team to win the next ODI World Cup 2023, T20 World Cup 2020 and Test matches championship which will include all Test matches to be played between July 2019 till 2023, is to immediately initiate an inquest and ruthless accountability by a high powered judicial commission [which can take help from any institution or department or individual] and simultaneous special audit by the auditors of the AGP of the PCB, for all its administrative and financial decisions taken during the period 1st January 2008 to July 5 2019.

However, if no ruthless across the board accountability is initiated for the PCB, business as usual, will continue.