RedwoodOriginal
Senior T20I Player
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2018
- Runs
- 19,881
- Post of the Week
- 4
We can blame selectors, coaches, captains and even chairmen all we want, but at the end of the day, we need to ask ourselves, what about the PCB remains the same, no matter how many Gary Kirstens and Aqib Javeds walk through the door? And that's the PCB top brass. Most of these people who are in key management/decision-making positions stay in these positions for years, and that's why nothing changes.
They develop entrenched interests within the system and benefit from cronyism to stay in power and make themselves valuable. These are not people who have the best interests of Pakistan cricket at heart, these are people who have their own best interests at heart.
Now obviously these people are smart enough to stay away from the limelight to avoid scrutiny. Because you have to understand that they are not average people. They are well-connected individuals with influential family backgrounds who use those links to protect their positions of power.
How is it that someone like Subhan Ahmad gets to sit in the PCB for 25 years, nine of those as COO, while Pakistani cricket goes backwards? How does a system keep the same man in power for decades despite zero visible improvement? That longevity alone tells you alot about how the system protects insiders.
For that matter, how is it that Usman Wahla, suspended during the Asia Cup over handshake-gate, gets quietly rehired just weeks later? Did Naqvi just give him nine stiff canes as punishment and call it a day, or did daddy give a phone-call to someone powerful in-charge and have his son reinstated? There are countless figures like this, hidden from public view, and they’ve been damaging Pakistan cricket for years.
Just take a look at the hiring of Dr. Sohail Saleem, a man whose track record is so consistently disastrous that the fact he was ever allowed within ten feet of Pakistan’s top athletes is a damning indictment of the PCB’s standards, its hiring policies, and the people running it.
This isn’t just some incompetent tool we are talking about here, this is someone who has actively destroyed the careers of Pakistani cricketers.
And all you need to do is look at the case of Ihsanullah. An independent three-member panel concluded that 'Dr.' Sohail Saleem:
This wasn’t some small laps either. The report clearly stated that the surgery was done without proper pre-op assessment, the rehab plan was nowhere near professional standards. Think about that...a 150 kph bowler reduced to a rehab case because the PCB’s medical head didn’t follow basic sports medicine protocols.
And this wasn’t even a one-off. He also: mishandled Azhar Ali’s back injury with repeated misdiagnoses and premature clearances, botched Haris Sohail’s chronic knee issues with stop-start rehab and incorrect treatment plans, ignored female cricketer Shawal Zulfiqar’s elbow injury until an independent panel discovered she needed a CT scan and immediate surgery. There's even a nice thread by PP team that goes into some of this.
Here’s where it gets good though, Sohail Saleem left the PCB after the 2021 PSL bubble fiasco, so what did PCB do? They hired him back! The same guy who had a track-record of misdiagnosing/mistreating players injuries going back years put back in charge of the health of some the country’s most physically fragile and valuable athletes: fast-bowlers.
That alone tells you everything you need to know about the lack of accountability, standards, or professional oversight that exists within the PCB.
Because in any normally functioning cricket board, a medical chief with this record wouldn’t just lose his job. He’d lose his license. But in Pakistan he somehow gets rehired twice. Only after an independent inquiry, commissioned because Ali Tareen publicly embarrassed PCB, did he finally resign again. Didn't get fired. Resigned.
When we think of the PCB, we have to think of them like the bureaucracy of a state. What does the bureaucracy do? It creates hurdles. Why? Because it knows the system, it knows how to work the system and how to push the policies that protect its interests.
The solution is very simple, overhaul the PCB and run it like a professional organisation. Hire former business executives with corporate backgrounds, professionals from strategy, law, HR, give them fixed terms and with clear goals/expectations, use transparent, merit-based recruitment, and build accountability into contracts so people serve a term and then leave.
Look at the kind of backgrounds that run cricket in other countries: ECB CEO Richard Gould has a background in sports administration and commercial media, NZC chief Scott Weenink is a businessman, lawyer, and ex-first-class cricketer, Cricket Australia CEO Todd Greenberg has corporate, sports administration and player-relations experience. What’s the common thread? They are all professional, governance-focused leaders with corporate or administrative expertise, not political appointees.
If we want Pakistan cricket to actually get better, the change needs to start at the top.
Blame coaches and captains all you like, but unless something about how the PCB is run does not radically change, we will keep getting the same cycle of short-term fixes, PR suspensions, and lasting damage to players and the sport in this country.
They develop entrenched interests within the system and benefit from cronyism to stay in power and make themselves valuable. These are not people who have the best interests of Pakistan cricket at heart, these are people who have their own best interests at heart.
Now obviously these people are smart enough to stay away from the limelight to avoid scrutiny. Because you have to understand that they are not average people. They are well-connected individuals with influential family backgrounds who use those links to protect their positions of power.
How is it that someone like Subhan Ahmad gets to sit in the PCB for 25 years, nine of those as COO, while Pakistani cricket goes backwards? How does a system keep the same man in power for decades despite zero visible improvement? That longevity alone tells you alot about how the system protects insiders.
For that matter, how is it that Usman Wahla, suspended during the Asia Cup over handshake-gate, gets quietly rehired just weeks later? Did Naqvi just give him nine stiff canes as punishment and call it a day, or did daddy give a phone-call to someone powerful in-charge and have his son reinstated? There are countless figures like this, hidden from public view, and they’ve been damaging Pakistan cricket for years.
Just take a look at the hiring of Dr. Sohail Saleem, a man whose track record is so consistently disastrous that the fact he was ever allowed within ten feet of Pakistan’s top athletes is a damning indictment of the PCB’s standards, its hiring policies, and the people running it.
This isn’t just some incompetent tool we are talking about here, this is someone who has actively destroyed the careers of Pakistani cricketers.
And all you need to do is look at the case of Ihsanullah. An independent three-member panel concluded that 'Dr.' Sohail Saleem:
- delayed the diagnosis of his elbow injury
- prescribed inappropriate treatment
- sent him for hurried surgery with no specialist review
- recommended a surgeon who “lacked academics and experience”
- put Ihsanullah on a rehab plan that was inadequate and poorly designed
- allowed him to continue bowling and gym work before ruling out a fracture
This wasn’t some small laps either. The report clearly stated that the surgery was done without proper pre-op assessment, the rehab plan was nowhere near professional standards. Think about that...a 150 kph bowler reduced to a rehab case because the PCB’s medical head didn’t follow basic sports medicine protocols.
And this wasn’t even a one-off. He also: mishandled Azhar Ali’s back injury with repeated misdiagnoses and premature clearances, botched Haris Sohail’s chronic knee issues with stop-start rehab and incorrect treatment plans, ignored female cricketer Shawal Zulfiqar’s elbow injury until an independent panel discovered she needed a CT scan and immediate surgery. There's even a nice thread by PP team that goes into some of this.
Here’s where it gets good though, Sohail Saleem left the PCB after the 2021 PSL bubble fiasco, so what did PCB do? They hired him back! The same guy who had a track-record of misdiagnosing/mistreating players injuries going back years put back in charge of the health of some the country’s most physically fragile and valuable athletes: fast-bowlers.
That alone tells you everything you need to know about the lack of accountability, standards, or professional oversight that exists within the PCB.
Because in any normally functioning cricket board, a medical chief with this record wouldn’t just lose his job. He’d lose his license. But in Pakistan he somehow gets rehired twice. Only after an independent inquiry, commissioned because Ali Tareen publicly embarrassed PCB, did he finally resign again. Didn't get fired. Resigned.
When we think of the PCB, we have to think of them like the bureaucracy of a state. What does the bureaucracy do? It creates hurdles. Why? Because it knows the system, it knows how to work the system and how to push the policies that protect its interests.
The solution is very simple, overhaul the PCB and run it like a professional organisation. Hire former business executives with corporate backgrounds, professionals from strategy, law, HR, give them fixed terms and with clear goals/expectations, use transparent, merit-based recruitment, and build accountability into contracts so people serve a term and then leave.
Look at the kind of backgrounds that run cricket in other countries: ECB CEO Richard Gould has a background in sports administration and commercial media, NZC chief Scott Weenink is a businessman, lawyer, and ex-first-class cricketer, Cricket Australia CEO Todd Greenberg has corporate, sports administration and player-relations experience. What’s the common thread? They are all professional, governance-focused leaders with corporate or administrative expertise, not political appointees.
If we want Pakistan cricket to actually get better, the change needs to start at the top.
Blame coaches and captains all you like, but unless something about how the PCB is run does not radically change, we will keep getting the same cycle of short-term fixes, PR suspensions, and lasting damage to players and the sport in this country.
