I probably started to understand cricket and become a fan of it when the so called ‘Salman Butt era in 2010’ started with the likes of Mohammed Aamir, Azhar Ali, Asad Shafiq and Umar Amin being the “new blood.” That was quickly overshadowed by the Spot fixing saga.
If you are from the Gen Z generation then like myself clearly we haven’t seen the golden era which Gen X and Gen Y experienced for decades especially periods before 2003-04.
I look at our team now and it is extremely sad what I see. We don’t have a artistic bowler who can naturally swing the ball both ways, we don’t have a frightening pacy bowler, we don’t have a specialist mysterious spinner, we don’t even have a part time bowler Ala Hafeez who can contribute here and there. We don’t have a late powerful hitter or finisher with the bat either. The depth and quality in players has decreased dramatically if we compare it to the past decades. Remember at one point as back up we had Iftikhar Anjum, Yasir Arafat and Rana Naveed etc
With technology improving, more money in the game, cricket being back in Pakistan for almost 7/8 years, marketing and exposure being a tool anyone can use to their advantage, why are we still so poor at grassroot level, domestic level and International level?
I look at the Pakistan cricket team right now playing against Australia, and it is so depressing, there is no excitement, no aag, no wow factors, no swag, no aura in the team. No depth, no world class potential talent to be excited for.
Sad state of affairs, but this decline which has been happening for a long time is happening rapidly at a quicker pace.
Does anyone agree that we are probably at our lowest point in Pakistan cricket since one can recall in terms of quality? Why have we fallen so behind? How many decades are we aware from being a top challenging team again?
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