PCB Direction 2020

[Extra_Cover]

In 2018, with the appointments of Ehsan Mani and Wasim Khan in PCB management there was a collective sense of excitement at the prospect of more professionally run organisation. A couple of years later (albeit controversy free) we as fans feel they are doing perfectly fine with everything else other than cricket betterment, thats the irony.

At the start of their tenure the first major decision taken by this management was to abolish plethora of domestic teams and reduce them down to 6 for 1st XI and 2nd XI. In my opinion, this has still remained the best decision this management has taken. It was long overdue and hopefully we would see the increase quality and competitiveness of domestic games. I'm not having a bash at Fawad but I personally feel if this was done in 2010 then Fawad would not have held a similar domestic record as he currently does. In any case, I have hope of churning out better cricketers in 3 years time and hoping that u19 stars would not fade away like it has happened previously.

After this it has been quite a downtrend with extremely poor decision making being done by this think tank. Starting off with the debacle that was the firing of Mickey Arthur and the support team. With all due respect to people in this think tank I cannot understand how they could not see that Mickey led a 6/7 ranked team to Champions Trophy win. Mickey was the best thing that happened to Pakistan cricket in a while. On top of my head the things he did well included making fitness a priority; discarding Shahzad and Akmal and deliver in tournaments (Pakistan was doing well in WC too where I feel they were slightly unlucky there).

To have Mickey fired was the dumbest thing this think tank could have done and to replace him with Misbah was absolute facepalm worthy. Misbah had zero experience of any sort while Mickey was a trophy winning coach. I cannot understand this decision whatsoever. To make him the chief selector as well was a good move but imagine Mickey having the power to coach and select players! If Mickey was given this dual role and with 3 tournaments happening in next 3 years I'm quite confident that Hafeez and Malik would not have been part of this tour and neither would have Ifti made it to Australia tour. We need a visionary to change things around not someone who is content with mediocrity.

This was the biggest blunder this management made. However, the recent direction of the think tank is even more worrisome. The appointments of Younus, Waqar and Mushy makes absolutely no sense. They either have no experience or they are rinsed and repeated failures. What is a long-term view of these appointments? To make matters worse what is Razzaq, Faisal Iqbal, Basit Ali, etc doing coaching domestic sides? Why is name of Akhtar's name doing rounds for the post of chief selector? Why is PCB heading into this direction is beyond my understanding. Its pretty obvious if there is a person making noise in media then they are given roles in PCB without much thinking. However, they fail to realise there would be a time when these nobody's (in coaching) would be replaced by someone else and at that point the noise they are going to make will be even louder. Further, imagine what the domestic coaches have to go through when their jobs are grabbed by media opportunists. I do not see these bunch of individuals creating any positive impact on Pakistan cricket however I can already see a massive fallout happening due to ego clashes.

It just seems like PCB currently has no direction or vision whatsover, it neither has short term nor long-term goals down. It feels its survival mode when there is absolutely no need to be in this mode. Braver decisions could have been taken for better of Pakistan cricket but this management has succumbed to pressure from nobody.

 

[Markhor]

POTW, a perfect summary. While PCB have made the right structural changes, they've made the wrong personnel appointments with the hiring of an totally unproven coach in Misbah being their biggest mistake.

Even the CA appointments like Razzaq, Faisal and Basit are head scratchers given their history of incendiary public statements.

 

[Varun]

Even the CA appointments like Razzaq, Faisal and Basit are head scratchers given their history of incendiary public statements.

The tactic on this front seems to be to placate loudmouths with fancily named titles so they don't carry on lashing out in the media or on YouTube.

Shoaib Akhtar is up next.

 

[Mamoon]

Both Mani and Wasim are political appointments. Mani is out of his depth and is a sedate individual who does not have the character for this job.

Wasim Khan is downright incompetent who has made nothing but a flurry of idiotic decisions in order to play to the galleries.

We are told that he was set to become ECB Chief. If that is so, we must congratulate ECB for dodging a bullet.

If Misbah is to be sacked then the man who came up with the bright idea of handing him the dual coach and selector role should be sacked alongside him.

But Wasim will do another drama of creating a flashy position of some director to international cricket and high performance player development nonsense, with our fans doing bhangra over how he is reforming PCB.

 

[Mamoon]

Wasim should also be asked about the appointment of Waqar ‘Pep Guardiola’ Younis.

He has had a dozen stints as bowling/head coach since 2006 and he has failed every single time.

No individual has spent more time in the Pakistan dugout as he has over the last 10-15 years, and what has he achieved?

No organization in the world will continuously hire a person who has repeatedly failed to deliver in the past. The 2014-16 disastrous stint should have been the end of Waqar as Pakistan coach in any capacity.

Furthermore, we have hired former players with loud mouths at the academy level who have no track-record of successful coaching.

Considering the hype that Wasim generated when he was appointed the way the dholak & bhangra brigade were singing songs in his praise, I am surprised that we haven’t seen England coaches making a beeline of working with a so-called stalwart.

He was supposed to be the next ECB Chief before he decided to do a favor on PCB with the “I am leaving England to help Pakistan” drama.

 

[Extra_Cover]

The tactic on this front seems to be to placate loudmouths with fancily named titles so they don't carry on lashing out in the media or on YouTube.

Shoaib Akhtar is up next.

Any objective mind knows if this is the reason for their appointment then the lack of performance would be the reason for their sacking as well. When the time comes to sack them, their loud mouths would be even louder, in a way PCB is giving them more audience with these appointments and shooting themselves in the foot while doing so.

 

[Mamoon]

Nevertheless, Mickey had be sacked.

He was nothing but a talker who failed to build on the Champions Trophy fluke. By the end of his tenure, his entire focus was on saving his job judging by the statements he gave in the media.

He build a false perception among the dholak & bhangra brigade with the constant minnow bashing in 2017-2018, but the wheels came off in spectacular fashion in late 2018 starting with the Asia Cup.

We were brutally exposed against the top sides and there was no way Mickey could have retained his position after the NZ Test defeat in UAE and the World Cup humiliation.

In fact, we saw the signs as early as Jan 2018 when we got blanked 5-0 by NZ, but the dholak & bhangra brigade brushed it aside and blamed it on poor preparation because their heads were still in the clouds because of the flash in the pan Champions Trophy.

 

[Extra_Cover]

I do not want to go into the political direction in here. I'm just legitimately confused.

I just do not understand the appointments of Younus, Waqar and Mushtaq in the current setup. You fail once, twice and thrice but why would the fourth time be the charm? Also what are your chances of success if you have zero experience in coaching? This not only goes for Younus it goes for Basit, Razzaq, Faisal and others. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the learning capabilities of Pakistan cricketers is between the age of 14-21 after that I do not see any Pakistani cricketer "learning" something new. They tweak their current game but do not add something more. In short what I'm trying to say is Pakistani cricketers cannot be good coaches if they have not spent the time in the art of learning.

To give a better example, I feel Shan could be a very good coach regardless of his international numbers this is because you can see this guy is learning and developing the game in his later years hence would have the "knowledge" on how to improve. On other hand we have Younus, who I cannot think can be a good coach simply because his success in international cricket was his strong mentality which is a personality trait and not something that can be coached.

I'm just surprised by PCB to carry on with these appointments as I cannot see any sort of pressure currently on them to push for these. This was a time when not much was happening so good appointments could have been done rather than taking our cricket back to 2013 era where we were in survival mode.

 

[Extra_Cover]

Nevertheless, Mickey had be sacked.

He was nothing but a talker who failed to build on the Champions Trophy fluke. By the end of his tenure, his entire focus was on saving his job judging by the statements he gave in the media.

He build a false perception among the dholak & bhangra brigade with the constant minnow bashing in 2017-2018, but the wheels came off in spectacular fashion in late 2018 starting with the Asia Cup.

We were brutally exposed against the top sides and there was no way Mickey could have retained his position after the NZ Test defeat in UAE and the World Cup humiliation.

In fact, we saw the signs as early as Jan 2018 when we got blanked 5-0 by NZ, but the dholak & bhangra brigade brushed it aside and blamed it on poor preparation because their heads were still in the clouds because of the flash in the pan Champions Trophy.

I disagree.

The reason for the results to be pear shaped was solely on his persistence to have Sarfraz as captain and player in the team as he was unable to locate a replacement for him. I have a very strong suspicion that Mickey would have overhauled the team post WC with outset of Sarfraz, Malik and Hafeez.

In tests, Mickey was to blame especially for lose in home tests (UAE) for lack of understanding. Not very confident that Mickey would have ringed the changes in tests that quickly but surely would have made some long-term decisions rather than survival ones (Abid and Fawad in tests).

 

[Pakpak]

POTW, a perfect summary. While PCB have made the right structural changes, they've made the wrong personnel appointments with the hiring of an totally unproven coach in Misbah being their biggest mistake.

Even the CA appointments like Razzaq, Faisal and Basit are head scratchers given their history of incendiary public statements.

Spot on. Decision making has been great when it comes to making structural changes. Its been horrible when it comes to appointments.

 

[Mamoon]

I disagree.

The reason for the results to be pear shaped was solely on his persistence to have Sarfraz as captain and player in the team as he was unable to locate a replacement for him. I have a very strong suspicion that Mickey would have overhauled the team post WC with outset of Sarfraz, Malik and Hafeez.

In tests, Mickey was to blame especially for lose in home tests (UAE) for lack of understanding. Not very confident that Mickey would have ringed the changes in tests that quickly but surely would have made some long-term decisions rather than survival ones (Abid and Fawad in tests).

Sarfraz was part of the problem, he wasn’t the problem. The reason we got smashed was because our players barring Babar were not good enough.

When only 1-2 of your players make into the XI of the top sides, you cannot beat them consistently regardless of who is leading the side.

 

[topspin]

POTW.

Only thing I will disagree on - Younis Khan earned his post as the side's batting coach. He's qualified to help the team when it comes to batting and undoubtedly has the best cricketing mind in Pakistan. We should be thankful to have him on board.

 

[topspin]

I disagree.

The reason for the results to be pear shaped was solely on his persistence to have Sarfraz as captain and player in the team as he was unable to locate a replacement for him. I have a very strong suspicion that Mickey would have overhauled the team post WC with outset of Sarfraz, Malik and Hafeez.

In tests, Mickey was to blame especially for lose in home tests (UAE) for lack of understanding. Not very confident that Mickey would have ringed the changes in tests that quickly but surely would have made some long-term decisions rather than survival ones (Abid and Fawad in tests).

Also, Inzy was back to his old tricks. He manipulated the players to get them to turn against Mickey. Sums up the kind of person he is but the point I'm trying to make here is Mickey did not approve of Inzy's selections. so it's unfair to see him get the entire blame for some of the bad results.

During Inzy's leadership of the team (Post 2003 WC - 2007 WC), he wasn't fond of trying out new players.

Misbah, on the other hand is 100% accountable for Pakistan's performances as Head Coach and Chief Selector. There is perhaps even more scrutiny on him because of the way he tried to oust Mickey to advance his self-interests.

 

[shah_1]

Pathetic so far

There has been no grassroot cricket for last two years.

 

[Junaids]

I broadly agree with this thread, apart from two condemnations of men.

Mushtaq Ahmed is not an Unqualified Fraud like Misbah and Waqar. He has his Level 3 coaching qualification and has been hired by England and the West Indies as well as Pakistan. And Surrey too.

Misbah and Waqar are not even qualified to coach at county or state level, and their appointments are outrageous, and their inept performances reflect their untrained minds.

Younis Khan is almost qualified - he at least started his Level 3 coaching training before dropping out.

Where Pakistan have gone wrong is in appointing unqualified men like Misbah and Waqar, who have performed exactly as if they weren’t fully trained for their jobs.

 

[Kroll]

To summarise:

The appointment (or clearing) of Misbah to take on two critical roles on the team side was one of the biggest blunders in Pakistan cricket history of which the repercussions we're starting to see from 2020.

 

[Energy]

The appointment for taking on two roles could have been a masterstroke, had there been a forward-looking individual who not only followed domestic cricket but also understood the mechanics of the three formats.

An interesting position was created, unfortunately the politics of managing it was extremely below-par.

 

[Titan24]

Ironically Pakistan cricket started the 2010 decade with Waqar Younis as head coach with Misbah joining in as captain in 2010 and now again Pakistan cricket has started another decade (2020) with these two but, this time Misbah being the head coach and Waqar being the bowling coach.

In the 2010 decade it was Ijaz Butt who was impressed by the duo and in 2020 they have left Wasim Khan (A product of English system) mesmerized. They surely know their way around PCB irrespective of who is in charge.

 

[ask_analyse_act]

Biggest disappointment was Misbah and Waqar. I’m ok with Waqar being the bowling coach , hope he limits himself there.

Wasim can reverse this quickly by appointing Mohammad Wasim as chief selector and if he could rope in Andy flower as head coach

 

[ask_analyse_act]

The appointment for taking on two roles could have been a masterstroke, had there been a forward-looking individual who not only followed domestic cricket but also understood the mechanics of the three formats.

An interesting position was created, unfortunately the politics of managing it was extremely below-par.

There is a lot conflict , If that was a good idea the bigger boards in ECB, CA, BCCI should have done it way earlier. If it was discussed to implement then they should try that out in domestics first before rushing to the national team. At least test it in a lower environment before pushing it forward.

 

[Afhan Ali]

Some of the cricket fans hate misbah since 2007, then Most of the fans start hating him since the 2011 semi final. And now almost 90% Pakistani cricket fans just hate this guy.

I never criticize him much but I am not his fan.

If he has any self respect, he should resign, and Wasim Khan should be given this as last chance.

 

[The Viper]

Good post. I find it embarrassing that the PCB is willing to appoint individuals like Abdul Razzaq and Basit Ali just to avoid criticism. Only the PCB appoints those that have constantly ridiculed them.

 

[sharmaji]

I am disappointed that the next competitive cricket that Pak will play is in 2021 (not counting the Zimbabwe series in Nov). It's a long wait for fans. I understand that due to the virus, things are different now, but PCB must work hard on planning to ensure PCT plays more International matches in 2021, at least.

 

[Colorblind Genius]

In 2018, with the appointments of Ehsan Mani and Wasim Khan in PCB management there was a collective sense of excitement at the prospect of more professionally run organisation. A couple of years later (albeit controversy free) we as fans feel they are doing perfectly fine with everything else other than cricket betterment, thats the irony.

At the start of their tenure the first major decision taken by this management was to abolish plethora of domestic teams and reduce them down to 6 for 1st XI and 2nd XI. In my opinion, this has still remained the best decision this management has taken. It was long overdue and hopefully we would see the increase quality and competitiveness of domestic games. I'm not having a bash at Fawad but I personally feel if this was done in 2010 then Fawad would not have held a similar domestic record as he currently does. In any case, I have hope of churning out better cricketers in 3 years time and hoping that u19 stars would not fade away like it has happened previously.

After this it has been quite a downtrend with extremely poor decision making being done by this think tank. Starting off with the debacle that was the firing of Mickey Arthur and the support team. With all due respect to people in this think tank I cannot understand how they could not see that Mickey led a 6/7 ranked team to Champions Trophy win. Mickey was the best thing that happened to Pakistan cricket in a while. On top of my head the things he did well included making fitness a priority; discarding Shahzad and Akmal and deliver in tournaments (Pakistan was doing well in WC too where I feel they were slightly unlucky there).

To have Mickey fired was the dumbest thing this think tank could have done and to replace him with Misbah was absolute facepalm worthy. Misbah had zero experience of any sort while Mickey was a trophy winning coach. I cannot understand this decision whatsoever. To make him the chief selector as well was a good move but imagine Mickey having the power to coach and select players! If Mickey was given this dual role and with 3 tournaments happening in next 3 years I'm quite confident that Hafeez and Malik would not have been part of this tour and neither would have Ifti made it to Australia tour. We need a visionary to change things around not someone who is content with mediocrity.

This was the biggest blunder this management made. However, the recent direction of the think tank is even more worrisome. The appointments of Younus, Waqar and Mushy makes absolutely no sense. They either have no experience or they are rinsed and repeated failures. What is a long-term view of these appointments? To make matters worse what is Razzaq, Faisal Iqbal, Basit Ali, etc doing coaching domestic sides? Why is name of Akhtar's name doing rounds for the post of chief selector? Why is PCB heading into this direction is beyond my understanding. Its pretty obvious if there is a person making noise in media then they are given roles in PCB without much thinking. However, they fail to realise there would be a time when these nobody's (in coaching) would be replaced by someone else and at that point the noise they are going to make will be even louder. Further, imagine what the domestic coaches have to go through when their jobs are grabbed by media opportunists. I do not see these bunch of individuals creating any positive impact on Pakistan cricket however I can already see a massive fallout happening due to ego clashes.

It just seems like PCB currently has no direction or vision whatsover, it neither has short term nor long-term goals down. It feels its survival mode when there is absolutely no need to be in this mode. Braver decisions could have been taken for better of Pakistan cricket but this management has succumbed to pressure from nobody.

Nicely written but the gist is the same - another critique, which seems; however, very true.

I think the main problem is incompetency on a broader level.
The issue is, NOBODY KNOWS HOW TO DO IT, so they are just passing the buck.

Mani was brought in by Imran Khan since Imran is out there trying to catch and fry a bigger fish. (Good luck with that).

Mani didn't know how to do it, so he hired Wasim Khan to fix it.
Wasim Khan did not know how to do it, so he hired Misbah and Waqar to fix it.
Misbah and Waqar do not know how to do it so they keep coming up with all different kinds of excuses and all different kinds of philosophical statements in a lame effort to prove that they know more than the general public.

We need to address this issue of incompetence at the PCB's administration level.
There is an army of 900+ employees at PCB and I think, not a single one is hired on merit and competency, starting from the Chai wala to Mr. Mani

There are brothers and friends of National and provincial assembly members sitting at different high level posts. We have no idea how competent are they, and exactly what are they doing besides sucking on the payroll?
There is a heavy influence of political based hiring on high level, and lots of nepotism at the lower level.

A friend actually worked with PCB on a short term contract. This is a genuine businessman who made a loss in providing a service to PCB but he was proud to have helped the PCB and exceeded the client's expectations. He visited PCB to resolve an issue where one of his invoices was not getting paid for absolutely no reason.
He told me, the accounting department looked like a fish market in chaos.
His invoice might've gotten paid but he decided never to work this such a crooked and incompetent accounting department.


And then there is another sidebar issue which is our inherited problem.
Our society, our education system, our environment, our training, and our social setup, simply, does not, I repat, DOES NOT produce great leaders.
This is one of our biggest problem whether you like it or not. We have an extremely rare exception here n there but a true, hard and very bitter fact is, we simply don't produce great leaders.

So, on a broader level, we are not just good admins and good organizers. We may be very good workers but with a few exceptions may be, we are simply incompetent and leadership roles.

 

[Thunderbolt14]

Nicely written but the gist is the same - another critique, which seems; however, very true.

I think the main problem is incompetency on a broader level.
The issue is, NOBODY KNOWS HOW TO DO IT, so they are just passing the buck.

Mani was brought in by Imran Khan since Imran is out there trying to catch and fry a bigger fish. (Good luck with that).

Mani didn't know how to do it, so he hired Wasim Khan to fix it.
Wasim Khan did not know how to do it, so he hired Misbah and Waqar to fix it.
Misbah and Waqar do not know how to do it so they keep coming up with all different kinds of excuses and all different kinds of philosophical statements in a lame effort to prove that they know more than the general public.

We need to address this issue of incompetence at the PCB's administration level.
There is an army of 900+ employees at PCB and I think, not a single one is hired on merit and competency, starting from the Chai wala to Mr. Mani

There are brothers and friends of National and provincial assembly members sitting at different high level posts. We have no idea how competent are they, and exactly what are they doing besides sucking on the payroll?
There is a heavy influence of political based hiring on high level, and lots of nepotism at the lower level.

A friend actually worked with PCB on a short term contract. This is a genuine businessman who made a loss in providing a service to PCB but he was proud to have helped the PCB and exceeded the client's expectations. He visited PCB to resolve an issue where one of his invoices was not getting paid for absolutely no reason.
He told me, the accounting department looked like a fish market in chaos.
His invoice might've gotten paid but he decided never to work this such a crooked and incompetent accounting department.


And then there is another sidebar issue which is our inherited problem.
Our society, our education system, our environment, our training, and our social setup, simply, does not, I repat, DOES NOT produce great leaders.
This is one of our biggest problem whether you like it or not. We have an extremely rare exception here n there but a true, hard and very bitter fact is, we simply don't produce great leaders.

So, on a broader level, we are not just good admins and good organizers. We may be very good workers but with a few exceptions may be, we are simply incompetent and leadership roles.

Top level post. As someone who has interacted with accounting departments across several different organizations (though not at the PCB) accountants are incompetent, manipulative, and self-serving. Don’t mean to generalize (which is what I’m doing) but I do get a general impression of a specific personality type which might be a product of Pakistan’s education system. I don’t know too many smart folks who go into accounting, it’s always the back benchers who are reasonably okay at math without many other career options available.

You’re very right about our culture and education set up- we stifle expression at young ages and prevent self-growth. These are key when developing leaders as it comes down to personality. You express yourself, make mistakes, learn. You understand people, reach out, lead. None of these steps are developed in a traditional Pakistani system.

Even the top level private schools induce self-serving mannerisms in their top students, rather than developing leaders.

 

[gibsyhesperis]

The reason why we lose is that the players are not really good enough. We have one world class player, some untested inexperi need ones and the majority are mediocre (their records do not lie).

Not sure what difference a coach would make to this — it is a systemic issue related to the structure of our cricket, our ability to bring players through from junior levels to representative level and a general professionalism of all the structures.

In addition, what credit worth coach would think of touching the Pakistan job given the revolving door that job is ?