When the national cricket team was going to participate in the T20 World Cup in USA there were rumors about differences amongst the players. The atmosphere was not good due to the quarrel between the captain Babar Azam and Shaheen Shah Afridi. Which was also reflected in the performance of the players. If we review the games against USA and India in T20 world cup, no player except Naseem Shah was seen playing with heart and they lost both matches against India and USA very easily.
Due to which the exit from the World Cup was for sure however there was some hope left in case of the possible defeat of the United States to Ireland, which was washed away in the rain. It may be recalled that rain in Florida on June 14 ended the match between USA and Ireland as well as ends Pakistan’s 2024 T20 World Cup campaign. That match was ended without a single ball being bowled while USA and Ireland were both awarded one point each which gave our team no chance to enter the Super 8 or Quarter Final stage of the tournament.
While the Pakistani team’s performance in both the matches was unimpressive, the merciless weather did not help it either. During the entire tournament the national team neither impressed the fans with their bat nor with their bowling, while along with poor fielding, catches were also dropped on important occasions. Especially Shaheen Shah’s missed a catch on important occasion against USA is unforgivable. If he had caught that, maybe Pakistan would have won the match.
Similarly against India our bowlers bowled very well but Captain Babar Azam and all the senior batsmen turned the tables on it and we lost a winnable match.
Although this is not the first exit of the national team in the group stage of any T20 World Cup, they have done so twice before but the manner of exiting the tournament this time is perhaps uniquely disappointing.
In the defeat against India the team could not achieve the target of 120 runs. It said that after the team’s exit from the World Cup the PCB held a late-night meeting and decided to revise the central contract. A number of players have been reported to be on the chopping block and will struggle to hold on to their place, while others may face a demotion of their central contracts.
How much impact this will have in an era where a central contract is not the only source of income for an international cricketer. In fact, the three players involved in this World Cup disaster, Mohammad Amir, Fakhar Zaman and Imad Wasim have already been signed up by a new Caribbean Premier League franchise for the 2024 edition. The major surgery that the PCB Chairman has talked about needs to be borne in mind that cricket is no longer a game played between nations alone and is transforming into a club and league franchise model that seen in sports such as football. The key question is how a team can perform so poorly in their country’s most popular sport.
This clearly indicates a systematic failure to utilize and develop talent. It should be remembered that PCB as a body has been running the game of cricket in the country for seven decades, so all the responsibility cannot be placed on the players, it is the responsibility of the entire board. So it is not fair to blame all this incompetence on the players, for this PCB is also responsible.
Now there should be a surgery of the entire board. On the other hand there is a need to solve the problem of lack of leadership in all three formats, including T20, especially in place of current captain Babar Azam there is a need to bring in match-winning players so that they can play against good teams in tough situations. Due to the incompetence of the current leadership we are now losing to new teams like USA which needs to be thought about.
