[MENTION=131701]Mamoon[/MENTION] you've been saying for years there's no talent in Pakistan but now you're making the case for more FC teams because too many talents are being sidelined ?
The old system was not working for us. We were ranked 7th in Tests at the time of the change. There were too many mediocre cricketers not fit for FC cricket much less internationals, clinging on well past their expiry dates.
At least now with fewer teams and vastly improved broadcast coverage - it's much easier for youngsters to break through like Abdullah Shafique, Mohammad Huraira and Abrar Ahmed - and much tougher to get away with corrupt practices or complacency. It's unsurprising the people barking loudest against the system are toxic seniors Salman Butt and Kamran Akmal who think it's an insult to now have to perform for their places.
The departments themselves were making cutbacks, with UBL even closing down their cricket division in 2018. Their financial position has gotten worse since COVID, and they haven't come flooding back despite the new Govt. If the departmental structure was better then why hasn't any other cricketing nation adopted it ?
Najam Sethi in his PP interview said he wanted to abolish departments himself but ran into political obstruction.
It is not about talent or no talent. It is about giving professional cricketers a platform to play. It is very unrealistic & unreasonable to suggest that if you are not international quality, you should not play domestic cricket.
Cricket as a professional sports exists outside international cricket. Sure, it is the end goal of every player to play international cricket but if you don’t, it doesn’t mean that you should not get a chance to play domestic cricket.
There isn’t a single a cricket nation in the world where domestic performers are sidelined but that is what Pakistan is attempting to achieve by trimming down the teams to 6 which are nowhere near enough to cater to a huge population.
There is no obviously no perfect number of teams, but 6 is clearly not enough. Again, [MENTION=1269]Bewal Express[/MENTION] & others say that we have 12 but again, 6 division one & 6 division two teams is not the same as 12 division one teams.
The current system is actually making it harder for young players to break through because regular domestic players are still getting picked for their regional sides, so now it is even harder for a youngster to break through.
Less number of teams is not proportional to better production of players. If that were true, there wouldn’t be 38 teams in Ranji & if that were true, India would produce all time greats only if they trim down Ranji to 12 teams because you will have to be extraordinarily gifted to break through a 12 team FC tournament that is catering to 2 billion people.
Pakistan’s problem was not number of teams or departmental cricket. None of the problems were solved by revamping the domestic cricket. 4 years later we have seen 0 positive outcomes.
If things are as bad now, if not worse, than they were few years earlier, then it simply means that departmental cricket was not an issue.