Just when fans assumed that Pakistan cricket couldn’t fall any lower, the embarrassing results in the ICC Champions Trophy put Mohammad Rizwan’s side into the darker dungeons of the cricketing world. The current crisis in the Pakistan team isn’t something that was recently built. Experts and former cricketers feel the signs were there in the making for a few years. A major part of the blame for Pakistan’s current situation goes to former skipper Babar Azam, who allegedly, selected his ‘friends’ in the team and overlooked others who arguably had more merit.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Veteran Pakistani cricketer Ahmed Shehzad, who himself has been on the sidelines for a few years now, accused Babar of ‘favouritism’ while he was the skipper of the national team.
“It’s sad to see him in this condition. When he started his career, it seemed he would break all records for Pakistan. But now, everything is in front of you-players don’t fail for this long. It was a mistake to make a performer the captain. After becoming captain, he surrounded himself with friends and selected them for the team, disregarding merit. When you favour friends over deserving players, the wheels of domestic cricket stop turning, as genuine performers don’t get enough chances,” Shehzad told Sports Today.
Shehzad also spoke of political interference in Pakistan when it comes to the selection of players, management, or even coaching staff. According to the former Pakistan batter, the influence of politics has been such that ‘merit’ hasn’t always been the criteria of selection in the team for a while now.
“Political interference has always been there; there’s no doubt. But the condition of the team is not because of the last two years, this has been happening for a while now. When you don’t bring in reforms, when you don’t honour merit, and when you don’t control indiscipline in the team, sooner or later, these results will come,” Shehzad added.
from: NDTV Sports-Latest