Speaking with some of the younger upand coming players and all they seem to be bothered about are PSL contracts. They frankly couldn't care less if they played QEA Trophy or List A cricket or for their country.
The usual wording is "can you let your PSL contacts know about me."
You can't blame them when their efforts accumulated in a whole season only pay 1% of what they could earn in a month long PSL. For example if they got a $30,000 PSL contract, I doubt they would even earn $3,000 from contract and match fees from playing in QEA + LOI tournaments in Pakistan.
This burning desire from the young Pakistani cricketers to make a name for themselves in PSL is not such a bad thing in the future since the highest quality of domestic cricket happens to come from this tournament when you consider:
1.
Quality of coaches - Mickey Arthur, Tom Moody and etc rather than some nepotistic selection who doesn't hold any coaching qualifications nor any cricketing experience at a high level.
2.
Better televised coverage - I think the importance of this can easily be underestimated but one must appreciate it provides a more ideal platform for recognition of top performers. The coverage on Pakistani channels for domestic matches in Pakistan are so bad it is like watching a cricket game from the 80s and the lack of technology used makes it harder to analyse players.
3.
Lesser teams - to boost the average talent pool per team enabling better quality and more competitive cricket among the best players in the country.
4.
Rubbing shoulders with world class/legendary players outside Pakistan as we've seen with Luke Ronchi, Gayle, KP, Jason Roy, Bairstow, McCullum, Narine, Andre Russell et al. Some of these names may have under performed but their experience and knowledge is invaluable for the more inexperienced players.
Sharjeel, Hasan Ali, Fakhar and Shadab are all PSL finds. If they was no PSL they may have been rotting in domestics today without being called up to the international side. Not to forget the latter trio played pivotal roles in the CT win. PSL will continue to be the pipeline for T20I and ODI sides not the other awful List A and T20 domestic tournaments.
About 5-6 back I was watching on Sky - Dominic Cork and Robert Key were talking about the future of test cricket. They came up with the theory that test selections will be on the basis of performances in IPL and other T20 leagues citing the evolution of David Warner.
For those who aren't aware, he started as a T20 cricketer who didn't even play FC matches, but after the Australian think tank liked what they saw of him in the shortest form of the game, they came up with some innovative thinking and gave him the chance to express his natural game in all formats with guidance on subtle adjustments required in accordance to the format of the game. He is now a fine batsman in all formats and for me the most destructive on Aussie soil because of his ability to score tons consistently and rapidly.
At the time of watching the programme I must admit this theory was absurd and merely thought Warner was an exception but when I saw Buttler how he performed earlier this summer on the back of a successful IPL and other IPL stars like Bumrah, I believe the theory has already come in to fruition with top teams i.e. SA, Eng, NZ, Aus and India (aka SENAI).
The defensive and attrition styles of batting from the likes of Azhar Ali, Pujara (when he bats outside the SC), Cook (who just retired) and etc are the among the last generation of a rare breed of players because in the coming years, I envisage the top test teams will be dominated by batsmen who can score their runs quickly at 60+ strike rate.
It is about time Pakistan think thank and fans to embrace the end product of T20 leagues otherwise we will continue to fall behind SENAI.
"pal mai tola pal mai masha" urdu proverb for him
