What an interesting ICC Champions Trophy 2013. Unsurprisingly, Pakistan was the most mediocre team all departments. Having travelled to Pakistan many times, it amazes me to see such raw talent on the streets playing cricket with passion – a Test team could be picked alone from the streets of Lahore, if talent was the main qualification.
Sadly, these days the main qualification is who the player knows or is related to and not how good the player is. Another damaging blow to Pakistan’s success in these international tournaments is frankly speaking the worst first class set in cricket in the whole cricketing world, consisting of departments, companies and not regionally based such as in England where you have counties such as Surrey, Yorkshire, etc right down to well organised local leagues.
Even arch rivals India, probably the most successful team in current times have a domestic first class system which is regionally based on the excellent RanjiTropy allowing players like ShikarDawan from New Delhi to flourish and reap the rewards for their hard work, and play for India based on merit, performance and nothing else.
Pakistan’s greatest captain of all time, Imran Khan, would often overrule selectors picking world class winning teams and single handily discovering players such as Abdul Qadir, WasimAkram, WaqarYounis and InzamamUlHaq. Imran never chose a team based on favouritism or any other underhand means. In fact, one selector resigned over Imran’s selection because Imran as captain would not pick his ‘favourite’ player. Ruthlessly Imran Khan went on to captain and win the 1992 World Cup in Australia something that is unlikely to happen anytime soon to Pakistan in any tournament unless of course there are unprecedented changes to both the selection procedure and the structure of cricket in Pakistan, until then Pakistan’s ardent and loyal supporters worldwide will continue to be disappointed and that’s putting it mildly.
Imran Khan and probably the most successful Pakistan cricket team of all time.
By Asif Tanvir
