After so many years of watching Pakistan cricket, I think we can all agree that doing the right thing goes against the logic of PCB.
Whereas once upon a time we could get by with the best talent in the 90s, now with the talent pool few and far between, one must be tactical in their approach to team selection and coaching, which of course we continuously fail it.
It is not Misbah's fault they selected him. Give me a high paying job and a position of power with little experience, and full autonomy and I would say sign me up right away. This is as it has always been a systemic issue.
Constantly having to appease people's egos and never focusing on the bottom dollar, which is winning matches and having some respect for the country.
It is always, this person has that persons backing so he must play, or this person has dirt on that person so he must play, or he is buddies with the selector and/or coach, so they must play.
This systemic issue constantly being a point of emphasis will never lead to the best results for Pakistan cricket. Unfortunately we will continue to see this round-about way of leadership for the foreseeable future.
It is honestly just cabal after cabal, and though we are not capable of winning at the big stage, at the very worst we can try to put the best team out there in terms of talent.
We did very well in the World Cup given what talent we have, and in a bizarre move we fire the coach that seemed to actually have a good system in place, that over the years might be able to build from the grass roots level in terms of good discipline and the way to play. Stay away from the Afridi archetype, and have more of the Babar's of fitness and hard work, discipline, and no free handouts.
It is always the same unforunately, and we will constantly have to discuss this over and over again, and make ourselves go crazy. Maybe down the line someone from the top will stop this style of running PCB, but as of now it is as it has always been; a show to appease X or Y person/player, and keeping Pakistan and the fans interest in the backburner.
In a broader spectrum of things, I tend to agree with you.
However, we must scratch the dirt to get to the bottom of this exceptional case.
First, Misbah himself.
Let's put aside his cricketing skill - whether he saved Pak cricket after 2010 and has an MBA, or whether he was a tuk tuk batsman, is not our topic of discussion here.
We are looking at the role he has played after retiring from cricket.
When Mickey was shown the door, you needed a new coach for which PCB was ready to pay $20,000 odd a month and a guaranteed salary for three years regardless of how he performs and regardless of whether he stays on job or gets fired.
With this premise, you may think that PCB would hire someone with a jaw dropping coaching ability, and a track record of making a huge difference in the international arena.
But guess who did we hire?
Deep in his heart Misbah knew it with 1000% surety that he does NOT qualify to apply for either of the positions - it’s like a pharmacy graduate applying for a physician and a surgeon’s job combined - YET - he applied for these positions.
Why? Because of greed, money and power and the auxiliary of a dishonest mindset.
IMO, if Misbah had an iota of sincerity and honesty towards the true benefit of Pak cricket, he would’ve stayed back and helped the board in finding the right and qualified professionals to take on these two positions. But for $240,000, a year, it wasn’t hard to sell his soul. (And in all honesty, I guess many of us would do it too).
But seriously ask yourself, where is the concept of giving back to the country?
This country gave him prestige, money and fame - and in return, what did he do?
If we look back, he actually started to show his colors by filing an application with Pak govt to exempt his salary from all taxes.
Don't you love it? You want to use the cricket grounds of this country, you want to drive on the roads of this country, you want to earn money in this country, but you don't want to pay taxes?
If it was a poor mochi, nayee, chai wala then yeah but can you imagine it for someone making millions of Rs every month?
This was the point where I lost most of my respect for Misbah.
Now comes Wasim Khan.
Over his tenure, he surely did quite a few a good things professionally. His hard-work and his role behind the scenes to bring cricket back to Pakistan is surely commendable. So credit must be given where due.
However, he badly slipped here.
Misbah lured Wasim Khan into it and not only got both jobs but made him sign a guaranteed salary of a whopping US$720,000 over 3 years regardless of results.
How is this even possible? The only way I see this happening is, if the prime minister has personally forced Wasim Khan and Ehsan Mani to accept Misbah's unrealistic salary demands, otherwise, Wasim Khan can't be this dumb, or is he?
Imran Khan can't be this corrupt and Wasim Khan can't be this much of a lallu - so this truly is a mystery for me as to how Misbah landed on this job with all his demands met by the board?
And to make the situation worse, Wasim Khan, after all is a DESI.
And what’s the desi mindset?
“Accept death but don't accept your mistake.”
This is a classical desi trait. This is hardwired into our DNA. We all have it.
Wasim Khan will now take the criticism on Misbah as a personal hit on his ego because it questions his intelligence and his ability to do his job.
He will be hell bent to defend Misbah’s hiring no matter what evidence, what logic and what results you present to him.
Just don’t have the guts to say "Sorry, I made a mistake. Let me fix it".
Here, in the west, you might’ve seen it a few times that when a person, on a high position, gets caught in corruption or sex scandal etc, he publicly apologizes and immediately resigns from the office - NEVER will you see this in desis. NEVER!
But then again,
At the end of the day, cricket is a funny game and Pakistan is an ultra unpredictable team.
Who knows if the team wins the upcoming T20 WC?
Misbah will gladly take the honor of making this all happen.
But if we badly lose, many of us will have our knives out for Misbah and Waqar.
