Why have Pakistan, Sri Lanka & West Indies fallen behind as cricketing nations? Is it due to administrative reasons or diminishing national pride?

[Bhaijaan]

West Indies were a force in cricket in the 1970s till the early 1990s. From mid 1990s onwards they’re regressed gradually. In T20s they have been very good in the tournaments but overall they remain a poor team today. Today they only compete for T20 tournaments. Winning a test championship or ODI CWC is a distant dream for them today.

Pakistan were a competing team in the 1970s and they progressed to become a top team by late 1980s and through the 1990s they remained the most exciting team to follow. From 2000s onwards their decline started and now they’re at rock bottom. The white ball tournaments format with small groups and multiple winner take all match opportunities suited them well until the ICC parted ways with that to have full fledged one group round robin format which brings the law of average into play and makes it harder for them to crack it being a genuine outsider to the big 4 group.

Sri Lanka emerged as a competing team in the mid 1990s and through the 2000s they had a golden age with cricketers like Murali, Jayasuriya, Mahela, Sanga, Mallinga etc. after Murali and Mahela retired they have been on the decline and currently they do not compete for tournaments anymore.


These teams were once upon a time regular contenders in every tournament but now they are not counted among contenders anymore except maybe T20 where everyone is a contender today including Afghanistan but not Sri Lanka.

So the question is , why have they declined or have they?
Have they declined or they’re just the same but the other teams took it to a different level. I think not because most people will say that their past teams would totally crush their current teams. So they did in fact deteriorate. But why?

Is it because of financial issues and poor administration?
If it’s that then how come they tasted success in the past? Did their boards manage things better in the past and have forgotten how to manage the game anymore.

Or is it because the current players in general lack national pride and do not compete as hard as they should when the nation’s pride is at stake.


Please share your thoughts.

 

[Varun]

Increasingly, you can also add South Africa to the list.

 

[Bhaijaan]

Increasingly, you can also add South Africa to the list.

I would not actually.

My arguement for that is that they only lack the trophies. Otherwise winning in South Africa is still not easy and the remain a rather healthy win % even to this day and against major nations.

Talking about talent also, de Kock, Rabada, Miller, Klassen are some top notch cricketers.

 

[Dr_Bassim]

Honestly?

Notwithstanding the poor management of these boards, cricket is being played to appease the BIG 3 only.

That's the harsh truth.

 

[Bhaijaan]

Honestly?

Notwithstanding the poor management of these boards, cricket is being played to appease the BIG 3 only.

That's the harsh truth.

Dr Bassim,
Please elaborate.

I think you are holding yourself here when in real we want you to let it all out.

Is there a greater and much deeper conspiracy in cricket that’s lead to this situation because you’re hinting that it might not be due to poor administration.

 

[Bhaijaan]

@MMHS @Markhor @Savak @Major @Cpt. Rishwat @DeadlyVenom @Mamoon @Hawkeye @Bilal7 @IAJ @Geordie Ahmed

 

[Kianig89]

One main reason is lack of support from big 3, the unjustified itinerary means Pakistan WI and SL play the least amount of Test cricket for whatever reasons.

Pakistan played a Test in Jan this year and now after 8 months their next test assignment. 8 months is a ridiculous gap in Test cricket

 

[Bhaijaan]

One main reason is lack of support from big 3, the unjustified itinerary means Pakistan WI and SL play the least amount of Test cricket for whatever reasons.

Pakistan played a Test in Jan this year and now after 8 months their next test assignment. 8 months is a ridiculous gap in Test cricket

Please elaborate and explain how the big three decide how many test per year other teams must play.

Isn’t it up to the individual boards to arrange more test cricket if they really prioritise it?

I want to really genuinely study each and every reason in its complete depth

 

[Monday Morning]

You need two things to succeed as a sporting nation - investment and infrastructure (domestic setup, skilled coaches, youth programs etc).

England and Australia have great infrastructure backed by solid investment, while India has decent infrastructure thanks to abundant (cricketing) riches.

Over time, these two factors compound and the gap between the haves and have-nots widens.

It's why the same few countries keep winning football tournaments.

 

[Suleiman]

Pakistan = admin reasons
WI = admin reasons + lack of national unity
SL = admin reasons

Out of these 3 WI have the most natural talent and athletic ability.

If they had only 1 of the above issues and not both, they would still be world class. Either admin being poor but still having unity under the West Indies banner. Or, good administration but lack of unity.

Think it’s time to split them into their respective islands or at least Jamaica and Trinidad being 2 distinct teams. Everybody else can join wither.

 

[ElRaja]

pak, wi and sri lanka, lack of professionalism. cricket was a semi pro sport till the mid 00s, and these teams were pretty competitive. now you have completely professionalized big 3 + NZ and SA. india has money to professionalize, the other nations have the expertise from football, rugby, etc. pak, wi and sri lanka have neither the resources, nor the expertise to compete in a professionalized sport.

pakistan given its market, has the potential to professionalize, but it would require 10 years of proactive management, and that's never gonna happen. sri lanka and west indies are too small to ever professionalize, unless their economies grow drastically.

SA is still a professional set up, but has suffered from brain drain, im guessing a huge proportion of competent youth coaches were white, and white people have been leaving sa wholesale, this is evident because they still produce would class bowlers (dont need coaches, or batsman, or pitches, etc, can learn bowling at a wall with youtube if you determined enough) but they have no young test level technical batsmen, because u cant learn batting on your own, u need a proper infrastructure and coaches to learn batting.

whilst the test fund makes sense on paper, theres no way that's not straight into random peoples pockets in Pakistan, the system is too corrupt. i will get flamed for saying this, because it sounds like a cliche, but Pakistan easily has enough raw talent to compete against any team, the fact that khwaja, moeen, rashid, tahir, sikandar raza, etc are international level players out of relatively small (compared to Pakistan) diaspora populations shows that.

also worth noting that moeen and rashid have family backgrounds from azad kashmir, two test players for a big 3 nation from an area that hasn't had a test player for Pakistan. the future is dismal though, the big 3 will be untouchable in a few years, and i dont think pak will ever get its house in order, the country is too much of a mess, and the impending economic disaster the country is heading towards will only make things worse.

 

[Savak]

One main reason is lack of support from big 3, the unjustified itinerary means Pakistan WI and SL play the least amount of Test cricket for whatever reasons.

Pakistan played a Test in Jan this year and now after 8 months their next test assignment. 8 months is a ridiculous gap in Test cricket

Ramiz Raja as PCB Chairman signed off on the itenary. You can't blame the Big 3 or the ICC if the PCB and the principal stakeholders in Pakistan Cricket are not willing to help themselves and Pakistan Cricket

 

[jnaveen1980]

West Indies is not one country. It is a collection of countries. They have some unique challenges in putting together a team and have them play for passion.

 

[Dr_Bassim]

Ramiz Raja as PCB Chairman signed off on the itenary. You can't blame the Big 3 or the ICC if the PCB and the principal stakeholders in Pakistan Cricket are not willing to help themselves and Pakistan Cricket

The only way current model is feasible is if the remaining major teams Pakistan, NZ, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies form a nexus league which serves as a feeder to Big 3.

An example tournament should be like this


Big 5

Australia
India
England
South Africa (4th team to have a play off with Middle 5 2nd placed team)
NZ (last team to be relegated)

Middle 4

Pakistan ( promotion to Big 5)
Sri Lanka (play off vs South Africa to decide promotion or stay in current league
West Indies (play off vs Last 3 to decide promotion or stay in current league)
Bangladesh (relegated to Last 3)


Last 3

Afghanistan (promoted to Middle 4)
Ireland (play off vs Last 3 to decide promotion or stay in current league)
Zimbabwe


But BCCI, Cricket Australia and ECB will never allow it happen.

 

[Kianig89]

Please elaborate and explain how the big three decide how many test per year other teams must play.

Isn’t it up to the individual boards to arrange more test cricket if they really prioritise it?

I want to really genuinely study each and every reason in its complete depth

Yes upto individual boards, therefore BCCI does not plays with PCB, thats minimum. 4 Test matches in 2 years, BCCI compensates their game time with 5 match series against CA & ECB. One can only improve by playing against the best

 

[Hikaru]

I lived near Pakistan border for a good chunk of my life and witnessed the Ferozpur/Hussainiwala border ceremony every week for my interest in Pakistani awaam and the differences between the two nations.

From those times in late 90s to now, one thing I have noticed in the Pakistani gallery is stunted growth. The Bhartiyas look way stronger, happier and better-off compared to the crowd on the other side. This was not the case in late 90s or the 2000s.

I see Pakistan suffering from what Bharat suffered from in the 90s. Awaam isn't getting proper nutrition and there is an overall lack of prosperity. This in my opinion is a big factor in Pakistani talent not reaching it's true potential. Cricket will find it's former glory once the prosperity returns.

 

[mominsaigol]

I don't know about sri lanka and West indies as I never visited these countries and have no info on them but for pakistan

It's because times have changed. Pakistan have progressed backwards and not forward.

Literally before 2006 to 2005 their was no load shedding in pakistan and now the lights go out per hour. The rupee to dollar exchange rate has increased to epic proportions and the proud youth of the 70's and 90's no longer wish to stay.

Everyone wishes to leave the country for better opportunities qith UK and USA being the 2 most popular destinations.

Heck the richest man in pakistan of all time shahid Khan himself is an American citizen and has vocally proclaimed that if a pakistani wants to get rich and build a successful life, they should move to USA and live the American dream as theirs no such thing as the pakistani dream. This shows the pathetic state pakistan is in.

In pakistan their is no talent being produced because the talented go abroad to study or look for work opportunities and not stay in pakistan because you have not given them infrastructure. It's why hockey, squash etc have regressed.

Arshad nadeem is an outlier, yes he's made the nation proud but the fact that he is the only representative shows how backwards pakistan is. Literally 1990 pakistan is more developed them 2024 pakistan.

Meanwhile India has progressed to become the 5th largest economy in the world, Australia has an ever stable economy that never decreases and England despite their economy taking a hit after the Queens death, they recovered and were more or less fine, People overexguarrared the economy hits because they've never seen how bad the pakistan economy is.

All these 3 are developed countries with India predicted to become the 3rd most powerful economy in the next decade or so surpassing Germany even.

They got talent, and the infrastructure to procure that talent. Meanwhile pakistan does not, and even if it did, it no longer has the infrastructure to cater to it.

I don't wish to be pessimistic but I have a feeling within the next 100 to 150 years or so, Pakistan won't even exist. It'll probs be merged with some other country because the country won't be able to sustain itself with the way things are going.

Whereas Australia, England, India will continue to exist for the next 10,000 years. These 3 countries ain't going nowhere

 

[maha3us]

This question is particularly on West Indies. A prominent reason WI was the top team till mid 1990s was because in every test match or ODI, they fielded four express fast bowlers who could succeed in any wicket. For a good number of years, till 1990s the fast bowlers who retired were seamlessly replaced by new fast bowlers. But all on a sudden this fast bowling supply stopped. This is an important reason the WI team performance declined. Why all on a sudden West Indies stopped producing fast bowlers?

 

[rpant_gabba]

The Free agency in american professional sports has had a huge impact on carribean sports.

This started in the late 80's. NBA and MLB paid a **** ton more than cricket could = Kids choose baseball and basketball over cricket.

 

[Bhaijaan]

Yes upto individual boards, therefore BCCI does not plays with PCB, thats minimum. 4 Test matches in 2 years, BCCI compensates their game time with 5 match series against CA & ECB. One can only improve by playing against the best

Why

This question is particularly on West Indies. A prominent reason WI was the top team till mid 1990s was because in every test match or ODI, they fielded four express fast bowlers who could succeed in any wicket. For a good number of years, till 1990s the fast bowlers who retired were seamlessly replaced by new fast bowlers. But all on a sudden this fast bowling supply stopped. This is an important reason the WI team performance declined. Why all on a sudden West Indies stopped producing fast bowlers?

What caused that?
Although we had some good talent in between but they could not put together a threatening pace quartet.

 

[pratiktc]

You cannot ascribe the reasons of decline for all teams to fuzzy concepts like national pride.

Every team goes through periods of churn where they simply dont find enough quality players to be regularly competitive. Countries like Australia have had prolonged such periods in 1980s and for about 4-5 yrs from 2009-14. NZ were firmly mediocre in Tests for a good part of mid and late 2000s before golden generation. England in 1990s and India in late 80s to mid 90s are also examples. These transitions are harder and longer to overcome for countries with small player bases (NZ, SL)

In Test cricket quite frankly a team's competitiveness depends on its batting. Bowlers ofcourse will win you series and matches but even an average team with two good in form batters can make a test series somewhat competitive by creating chances for draws or getting team into position where conditions are in their favour.
However an average team with two class bowlers will still be hopelessly overrun by opposition if batting is unable to put up fighting scores.

For West Indies since 1990 their decline has been in batting most starkly. Bowling has also had its share of weak eras but by and large usually they are able to put up a fighting attack.
In 1990s WI produced only 4 batters who averaged close to 40 and above - Lara, Chanderpaul, Adams and Hooper.

Since 2000 the most prolific batters they've produced have been - Gayle 7k@ 42, Sarwan 5.7k@40, Bravo 3.5k@36, Brathwaite 5.7k@33 and Samuels 3.9k@32.
You cannot compete in Tests with such low batting outputs.

 

[Bhaijaan]

You cannot ascribe the reasons of decline for all teams to fuzzy concepts like national pride.

Every team goes through periods of churn where they simply dont find enough quality players to be regularly competitive. Countries like Australia have had prolonged such periods in 1980s and for about 4-5 yrs from 2009-14. NZ were firmly mediocre in Tests for a good part of mid and late 2000s before golden generation. England in 1990s and India in late 80s to mid 90s are also examples. These transitions are harder and longer to overcome for countries with small player bases (NZ, SL)

In Test cricket quite frankly a team's competitiveness depends on its batting. Bowlers ofcourse will win you series and matches but even an average team with two good in form batters can make a test series somewhat competitive by creating chances for draws or getting team into position where conditions are in their favour.
However an average team with two class bowlers will still be hopelessly overrun by opposition if batting is unable to put up fighting scores.

For West Indies since 1990 their decline has been in batting most starkly. Bowling has also had its share of weak eras but by and large usually they are able to put up a fighting attack.
In 1990s WI produced only 4 batters who averaged close to 40 and above - Lara, Chanderpaul, Adams and Hooper.

Since 2000 the most prolific batters they've produced have been - Gayle 7k@ 42, Sarwan 5.7k@40, Bravo 3.5k@36, Brathwaite 5.7k@33 and Samuels 3.9k@32.
You cannot compete in Tests with such low batting outputs.

So why has West Indies batting declined.

 

[Major]

I think ever since we won the Olympic gold, the focus has shifted.

 

[Markhor]

Can speak better for Pakistan than the other two but here's my outside perspective:

Pakistan

1) Constant changes in PCB. Each Chairman is more interested in appearing busy than doing anything substantive, and making changes simply to spite their predecessors. Chairman is almost always a political appointee with no sports admin background.

2) Domestic cricket. Problems with formats, scheduling, pitches, balls etc has been discussed endlessly so won't repeat here. For a long time County Cricket masked the inadequacies of our system in developing talent for elite competition.

Sri Lanka

1) Corrupt administrators who are usually political cronies.

2) Lack of good facilities outside Colombo.

West Indies

1) Post-Dave Cameron, CWI is the best run board of the three but they merely oversee the territorial boards who are generally corrupt and inept. They've little authority to force changes in Jamaica, Guyana etc. There's little coordination between these territories who are more interested in promoting their own countrymen players for the WI team than investing in academies, schools etc.

2) Awful domestic cricket which makes Quaid-e-Azam Trophy look like 90s Sheffield Shield. Forget 40, there's specialist FC batsmen struggling to average 30.

3) Difficult in attracting and retaining talent due to poor remuneration.

The trio have one thing in common - high cost base and low revenues. None of them attract the bumper TV deals that India, England and Australia enjoy and have used to professionalise their cricket.

- Pakistan's latest TV deal went for $6-7m chump change with lack of bilaterals with India a major cause. Our costs are exacerbated by security measures so home internationals struggle to break even.

- WI have the highest costs because it's a collection of nations spread far apart (distance between Jamaica and Guyana is similar to London and Moscow) and being an international tourist destination means travel and accomodation is expensive.

- SL's economy is in the worst shape so struggle to attract sponsors.

Perhaps that's always been true but in the 80s and 90s, natural talent was enough to overcome any deficiencies in systems and infrastructure. That's no longer sufficient in this hyperprofessional age.

 

[Bhaijaan]

Can speak better for Pakistan than the other two but here's my outside perspective:

Pakistan

1) Constant changes in PCB. Each Chairman is more interested in appearing busy than doing anything substantive, and making changes simply to spite their predecessors. Chairman is almost always a political appointee with no sports admin background.

2) Domestic cricket. Problems with formats, scheduling, pitches, balls etc has been discussed endlessly so won't repeat here. For a long time County Cricket masked the inadequacies of our system in developing talent for elite competition.

Sri Lanka

1) Corrupt administrators who are usually political cronies.

2) Lack of good facilities outside Colombo.

West Indies

1) Post-Dave Cameron, CWI is the best run board of the three but they merely oversee the territorial boards who are generally corrupt and inept. They've little authority to force changes in Jamaica, Guyana etc. There's little coordination between these territories who are more interested in promoting their own countrymen players for the WI team than investing in academies, schools etc.

2) Awful domestic cricket which makes Quaid-e-Azam Trophy look like 90s Sheffield Shield. Forget 40, there's specialist FC batsmen struggling to average 30.

3) Difficult in attracting and retaining talent due to poor remuneration.

The trio have one thing in common - high cost base and low revenues. None of them attract the bumper TV deals that India, England and Australia enjoy and have used to professionalise their cricket.

- Pakistan's latest TV deal went for $6-7m chump change with lack of bilaterals with India a major cause. Our costs are exacerbated by security measures so home internationals struggle to break even.

- WI have the highest costs because it's a collection of nations spread far apart (distance between Jamaica and Guyana is similar to London and Moscow) and being an international tourist destination means travel and accomodation is expensive.

- SL's economy is in the worst shape so struggle to attract sponsors.

Perhaps that's always been true but in the 80s and 90s, natural talent was enough to overcome any deficiencies in systems and infrastructure. That's no longer sufficient in this hyperprofessional age.

Pakistan and Sri Lanka,

How were they able to produce outstanding talent in the 1980s 1990s,2000s.

The boards were still like that in the past and I assume the domestic structure even worse.

Is there something we are just missing to address.

Which system produced cricketers like Wasim, Waqar, Shoaib, Anwar, Inzy, Yousuf , Jayasuriya, Murali, Mahela, Sangakkara, Dilshan. Why both nations unable to produce such level of cricketers anymore.

It’s ok that a Shoaib Akhtar comes once a while but there are many names mentioned above and i didn’t write many more names .

Today’s cricketers from these two teams are just not near the level these cricketers used to produce not too long ago.

 

[JaDed]

Need to eat more veggies and improve IQ.

 

[Markhor]

Pakistan and Sri Lanka,

How were they able to produce outstanding talent in the 1980s 1990s,2000s.

The boards were still like that in the past and I assume the domestic structure even worse.

Is there something we are just missing to address.

Which system produced cricketers like Wasim, Waqar, Shoaib, Anwar, Inzy, Yousuf , Jayasuriya, Murali, Mahela, Sangakkara, Dilshan. Why both nations unable to produce such level of cricketers anymore.

It’s ok that a Shoaib Akhtar comes once a while but there are many names mentioned above and i didn’t write many more names .

Today’s cricketers from these two teams are just not near the level these cricketers used to produce not too long ago.

Like I mentioned County Cricket was a nursery for so many cricketers esp from PAK and WI. They learned alongside the best players and coaches in the world and were exposed to a variety of conditions. It was to red-ball cricket what IPL is today to white-ball cricket.

Once those opportunities were curtailed, the deficiencies in our system was exposed.

Secondly cricket wasn't as professionalised as it is now. There were no video analysts or data saying "Batter X averages 20 from deliveries on 6m length from left arm seamers" etc. Not knocking cricket back then, but natural talent was usually enough to overcome the opposition with little planning/preparation. Waqar mentioned this in an old interview:

“We’ve never given importance to coaching. We were never analytical or scientific. That guy is there [he points to the video analysis man on the dressing-room balcony], yeah sure he’s there. And he’s sitting there, and it’s kind of a highlights package and you can sit and analyse moments. But actually in the ’90s we never did analyse anyone: ‘he plays well here, don’t put it there.’ It’s not how long do you bowl at him there, what kind of field, what lengths, what is the B plan, the C plan, after that if it goes wrong, what happens? We had one plan. Go out there, get a wicket. We had resources. We sensed it and said, OK, bring Waqar back. Not even the captain [decided]. Sometimes I would go to the captain, give me two overs, let me do it. It was a kind of teamwork within the team but not like we’ll have a plan from before.

This thinking doesn't work anymore.

Can't speak for SL or WI but PAK's administration was definitely better in the 80s from what I've read. Nur Khan and Arif Abbasi had long, stable tenures which coincided with PAK's most consistently successful period on the field. Now we change the Chairman like a baby changes nappies.

 

[Saurav]

Lack of talent