The problem with our cricket is not a lack of talent or a lack of facilities ( of course, we don't possess either of these things in abundance, either), but it is a complete lack of cricketing intelligence.
Test match cricket requires an exceptional level of patience, skill and tactical awareness. It is not just a case of bowling faster or batting bravely. Test matches and test series are won by the ability to outthink and out-manoeuvre the opposition, to set your traps and avoid the traps of the opposition.
Unfortunately, we do not have a cricketing culture that values these traits, nor do we have a culture that cultivates them.
For example, the famous England captain Mike Brearley mentioned that for captaincy, "Technically, you need to know the game completely. You need to have great pleasure and interest in tactics. You need to be both inventive and cautious and move between attack and defence without too much of a radical shift"
Pleasure and interest in tactics start to be developed at a relatively young age. It develops not just from playing the game but from studying it and devouring cricketing media.
Initially, it develops through watching cricket with older members of the family, or subsequently, it is developed through critiques of your own game by family members ( fathers, uncles etc.).
Following this, a person's own interest is piqued, and they start to watch games on their own, listen to commentators and pundits, and then when the interest is fully developed, books are read to understand how older legends of the games approached their career events, historic matches are watched and understood, and a cricketing IQ is developed.
Unfortunately, none of the above exists in Pakistan.
Kids are actively discouraged from playing/watching cricket by Family members. We have all heard countless stories about how players would sneak out to play games while their strict parents would berate them for playing too much and encourage them to do something else. There is no initial development of sporting intelligence as is the case in western countries by going to watch matches together in the ground or taking kids to play sports on the weekend.
Our cricketing media is also third-rate; there is very little tactical discussion about field placements, strategies or gameplans on our television channels resulting in no exposure to the finer elements of the game.
Our players also do not have the capability to go out and seek information or develop a deeper appreciation of the game. I think if you were to ask one of our current players to name a test match from before their time or to name their favourite cricketing book, they would look at you blankly.
Don Bradman once stated that a good captain must know a fair degree about the history of the game and read a lot about it. Unfortunately, this will never be the case in Pakistan. I know the quotes from Brearley and Bradman relate to captains, but one can quite easily extrapolate their statements to apply to all players.
You may argue that Pakistan was competitive in the past, but cricket wasn't played at such a high standard, it was more of an amateur, and our finest captains ( barring the great Miandad, who was very astute) had an excellent finishing school in county cricket.
I am well aware that sport, by its very nature, is a physical game, but without cultivating and developing the mental and strategic side of it ( from a very young age), there is no chance of consistently being a top team in test cricket.. We do not have a culture that understands or values test cricket. In fact I think we should slowly abandon it and focus more on LOI where some brief flashes of individual brilliance can be enough to win.
