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Pakistan and New Zealand - "Talent" vs Systems

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Monday Morning

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In this millennium...

Pakistan have reached 1 WC semifinal out of 6.

New Zealand have reached 5 WC semifinals out of 6. Could've been 6/6 if not for politics in 2003, but anyway.

A comparison of the best XIs during this period:

Fakhar
KAkmal
Babar
Yousuf
Inzi
Misbah
Afridi
Aamir/Shaheen
Ajmal
Akhtar
Asif

Fleming
Guptill
Williamson
Taylor
McCullum
Mitchell
Oram/Santner
Vettori
Southee
Boult
Bond

Wasim, Waqar, Cairns, Astle were all past it despite appearing in the 2003 WC. And before anyone suggests Conway or Ravindra ahead of Fleming, please watch the game against South Africa in the 2003 WC.

To me, the XIs are fairly equal. So why are the results so different?

Let's see how many from these XIs featured in various WC squads:

2003: Pak (4), NZ (3)
2007: Pak (4)*, NZ (5/6)
2011: Pak (5)**, NZ (5/6)
2015: Pak (2), NZ (7)
2019: Pak (2/3), NZ (4/5)
2023: Pak (2/3), NZ (4/5)

*Akhtar and Asif should have been here. Perhaps even Misbah and Ajmal.

**Aamir and Asif... you know the rest.

Theoretically, Pakistan should have peaked in either 2007 (lol) or 2011 (they did). All other tournaments should have been (and were) underwhelming.

New Zealand did peak in 2015 (and 2019). They've expectedly done well in other tournaments.

Long story short, Pakistan have progressively declined over the past two decades. The systems were always prone to injudicious use of talent (Asif never played a WC game), and when the talent dried up - as it did in the 2010s - performance plateaued. Whereas the Kiwis have improved from mid-table team to regular contenders. There are lessons to learn here that I won't pretend to know in-depth, but I'm sure the New Zealand setup has robust systems in place to maximize (and compound) available talent.

Lastly, leadership matters. Both teams were down in the dumps in the early 2010s for different reasons. The reins of their country's cricketing legacy fell into the hands of Misbah and McCullum respectively, and the rest is history.
 
Monday Morning said:
Lastly, leadership matters. Both teams were down in the dumps in the early 2010s for different reasons. The reins of their country's cricketing legacy fell into the hands of Misbah and McCullum respectively, and the rest is history.
Click to expand...

This is a good point.

Pakistan and NZ both encountered changes in early-2010's (Misbah and McCullum).

McCullum enriched modern day cricket while Misbah solidified 90's cricket.
 
Impressively consistent performances from a nation that doesn't even have cricket as their main sport.
Hope they go one better and are 3rd time lucky in a final.
 
Strategical, professional. More Educated. They are aware of their limitations and they work within those limitations. under-19 world cup is still the system that is used to identify potentials for most countries.
 
The most impressive cricketing nation to me. New Zealand always over perform when it matters, always prepare well for knockout rounds, and continue to put together impressive teams even though the nation only has a population of 5 million people.

They made the final of the last 2 ODI WC’s, won a World Test Championship, and have the chance go do something special again. I hope they go all the way.
 
It is a misconception that Pakistan has talent.

New Zealand is a sporting country. It is also a first world country with state of the art facilities and a culture where athleticism, hard work, dedication and honesty are promoted.

It is basically the polar opposite of Pakistan.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
There are times when NZ cricket has been run very poorly. The 90s after 1992 world cup and also the late 2000s/early 2010s NZ cricket was an embarrassment to the nation. Even the McCullum era started off so badly that it almost killed cricket as a major sport in the country.

The point that NZ is a sporting nation is a good one. The facilities are generally of a decent level, but there is not that much money in NZ cricket, so they are many miles away from the facilities of an Aus or England.

I think the biggest difference between NZ and Pak is actually the culture of the nations as a whole. NZ is a nation that is very status quo, while Pak is very chaotic. So that means if NZ stumbles on to something that works then very little gets in the way of it. Alternatively if it is stuck in the quagmire then it will stay poorly run for longer than it needs to. Pak on the other hand has no consistency at the administration level and so there are always people meddling and undermining each other. Very hard to perform to the sum of your parts when the management and structures are so jumbled. If you come across something good it doesn't last very long. If it is not good there will be change, but that change is not given enough time to make something else that is good before it itself is changed.

Plus NZ has been riding a golden generation for its standards for the last 10 years.
 
In the 2023 World Cup, talent of Pakistan defeated so called system of New Zealand.
 
Mamoon said:
It is a misconception that Pakistan has talent.

New Zealand is a sporting country. It is also a first world country with state of the art facilities and a culture where athleticism, hard work, dedication and honesty are promoted.

It is basically the polar opposite of Pakistan.
Click to expand...
I've been to NZ, its basically Australia 2.0 but with much much better food, better culture as well in terms of artistic talent and visions, and a varying weather compared to aus seasonal weather, although aus is a better place to make a living in terms of money, job and business opportunities and tourism.

Nz is one of the strongest and best countries in the world. Its obviously going to be > a virtually bankrupt nation that's not even 80+ years old and filled with corruption.

Theirs a reason most parents in Pakistan do their best to move their kids to study abroad or just move to another country like aus, nz, USA, Canada etc.

Pakistan is a gone case at this point. Theirs nothing left. Maybe in lahore things are better. I've heard lahore is doing good thanks to syed Ali babar with lums and packages mall. The rest is dead though, especially Karachi which is a hot mess atm.
 
Monday Morning said:
In this millennium...

Pakistan have reached 1 WC semifinal out of 6.

New Zealand have reached 5 WC semifinals out of 6. Could've been 6/6 if not for politics in 2003, but anyway.

A comparison of the best XIs during this period:

Fakhar
KAkmal
Babar
Yousuf
Inzi
Misbah
Afridi
Aamir/Shaheen
Ajmal
Akhtar
Asif

Fleming
Guptill
Williamson
Taylor
McCullum
Mitchell
Oram/Santner
Vettori
Southee
Boult
Bond

Wasim, Waqar, Cairns, Astle were all past it despite appearing in the 2003 WC. And before anyone suggests Conway or Ravindra ahead of Fleming, please watch the game against South Africa in the 2003 WC.

To me, the XIs are fairly equal. So why are the results so different?

Let's see how many from these XIs featured in various WC squads:

2003: Pak (4), NZ (3)
2007: Pak (4)*, NZ (5/6)
2011: Pak (5)**, NZ (5/6)
2015: Pak (2), NZ (7)
2019: Pak (2/3), NZ (4/5)
2023: Pak (2/3), NZ (4/5)

*Akhtar and Asif should have been here. Perhaps even Misbah and Ajmal.

**Aamir and Asif... you know the rest.

Theoretically, Pakistan should have peaked in either 2007 (lol) or 2011 (they did). All other tournaments should have been (and were) underwhelming.

New Zealand did peak in 2015 (and 2019). They've expectedly done well in other tournaments.

Long story short, Pakistan have progressively declined over the past two decades. The systems were always prone to injudicious use of talent (Asif never played a WC game), and when the talent dried up - as it did in the 2010s - performance plateaued. Whereas the Kiwis have improved from mid-table team to regular contenders. There are lessons to learn here that I won't pretend to know in-depth, but I'm sure the New Zealand setup has robust systems in place to maximize (and compound) available talent.

Lastly, leadership matters. Both teams were down in the dumps in the early 2010s for different reasons. The reins of their country's cricketing legacy fell into the hands of Misbah and McCullum respectively, and the rest is history.
Click to expand...
It all comes down to batting

In the same time period, we have reached 6/8 T20 World Cup semifinals and have the best record for any team in that tournament

Either we produce good t20 Batsmen or tuk tuks like Misbah, Younis, Azhar, Asad who are effective in Test Matches

We have only produced literally 2 ODI batsmen of good caliber in the past 20 years- Babar and Mohammad Yousuf. Players who know how to pace their innings and are consistent as well
 
NZ selects on merit. The whole point of them playing the pak series wasn't to win, it was to test their bench and groom them.

Via the Pakistan series they learned that Mitchell should bat at 4 for the cup, and given will young's and ravindra's ipl performance, ravindra shpuld be no 3 in willamson place or as an opener in will young's place.

They also found a finisher in chapman etc.

Pakistan doesn't select on merit. Any team on the planet would boot nawaz and shadab and choose abrar a dude who was your best spinner in Sri lankan test series and England test series.

Only in Pakistan does the whole tu mera match winner nonsense apply.
 
A little warning from Kane Williamson for people who think NZ does not have what it takes to succeed in the future:


[Reporter:]

Last one for me, there’s a bunch of players on this side, yourself included, Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Tom Latham. You'll have played a lot of cricket together and there's potential that all of you together might not play in a World Cup again. Your thoughts on playing with this fantastic group and what it means to you?

[Kane Williamson:]

Yeah, I mean I think it's been, I suppose an ongoing effort, as a side to keep trying to get better and push the boundaries of where we can get to as a team. All those people that you've mentioned are massive parts of that. They're all different in how they operate but they're all leaders in their own right and share a real passion for this team and we're all grateful to have those players and you can only hope that as we experience from some of our leaders as young guys that we can continue to bring players through, not just in the quality that they bring, because we've seen that in spades throughout the last seven weeks, but also in how they're approaching their cricket in order to try and move this team forward and I think we've seen that too - so some good signs certainly in this last period of time. It's not over just yet but that's where the focus is. You come to these tournaments and they can be small margins whether you get further or not, but ultimately it's about growing as a group and becoming a better cricket team and I think the seven weeks were really valuable for us as a side. We wanted to go further naturally, but we'll reflect on it and take a lot of good out of it.
 
NZ also doesn't win World Cups. There is a reason why they are not called chokers as much as SA is called. They always put their best foot forward. Come up with plans and execute plans. No nervous energy. Even today Kane and Mitchell showed remarkable composure against the best attack of the tournament.
 
Forget about reaching semi finals and finals.

Pakistan has 0 cups. NZ has 0 cups.

Both are at same level.
 
New Zealand definitely has more talent as well, but they are an exceptionally run organization
 
There isn't a single cricketing parameter wherein NZ has an advantage over Pakistan. Their board isn't as rich, not a fraction of the player pool, far smaller fan following, don't have a popular T20 league etc... etc...

Yet?

As with everything else in the country there's simply a complete lack of intelligent competent management within Pakistan cricket. This fascination of employing big name former players with inflated egos and an obsession with media attention isn't yielding results.
 
Pakistan's measure of "talent" is flawed compared to even some of the other subcontinent sides. Shahid Afridi rewrote the definition of talent for them.. Few lusty blows. Boom there is a talent
 
Mumbai's dominance in Indian domestic cricket till 2010 or so is all the proof anyone needs that facilities and structure will always beat a larger pool of talent. Uttar Pradesh with 250 million population stood nowhere in comparison to Mumbai because they had no systen, no structure.

Bihar today stands nowhere in sight compared to even a lowly team like Goa with 80 times the population.

Now taken into account the fact that Mumbai, with its most advanced cricketing system within India, are nowhere close to the facilities and support that countries like NZ and AUS provide to their budding talents. And it's not just the hard cricketing infrastructure that makes a difference. The social support is probably the most important. If India gets someone like Dhoni it's pure luck and beating the odds. Someone like Dhoni would have no social support or a back-up. NZ and AUS players have no such worries.

So I am a lot less impressed by the relative success of teams like NZ in cricket.
 
It's all about the system because from a well organized system you can get genuine talent.

But here in Pakistan the whole system is corrupt, if u have a bigger parchi more u have the chance to get selected and from such a system you can only get the players we have right now.
 
An obese player being selected and nothing tangible being done at grass roots apart from "talent hunts" then ofcourse there will be a demise.

It's cumulative over the years combined with other countries making huge progress in their own and now we are seeing the results.

This could take 10 years to fix. I don't expect anything from the WCs up to 2032.
 
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