By Imran Malik
The wounds from the Cricket World Cup defeat are still fresh because we not only lost to India but also to the USA in the USA, and then we couldn’t even make it to the Super 8.
Cricket analysts had predicted this defeat since we lost the first match to Ireland and both matches in England. Mohsin Naqvi could not bring any success to us as the Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). But you should also know that he is a Senator and the Interior Minister of a sensitive country like Pakistan.
Additionally, keep in mind that he is also the Chairman of the City Media Group. While his idea for City News was successful, despite all his efforts, he couldn’t bring 24 News HD into the top 10 list, which is a major failure in his media career.
Now, let’s talk about the Pakistan cricket team. He, himself, is not a cricketer, and his governance style shows that he cannot manage cricket affairs. After successive failures, he should have adopted a professional approach and distanced himself from cricket matters, handing over the responsibility to a professional.
But the allure of power is such that one becomes addicted to it. Despite receiving the highest protocol in the Ministry of Interior that no other minister gets, it’s unclear why his advisors don’t inform him that one cannot ride two boats at once.
If you believe you can manage cricket matters and want to stay connected to cricket, then hand over the Ministry of Interior to a competent person who can travel to all four provinces to resolve matters and ensure law and order from the headquarters in Islamabad.
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Sitting in Lahore, you can manage PCB affairs but not the Ministry of Interior. And you should know that you are no longer the caretaker Chief Minister of Punjab for Lahore to be your headquarters.
Before the World Cup, we saw you meeting Mohammad Amir and Imad Wasim and bringing them back into the team. The division in the Pakistan cricket team became even more evident. These were the same cricketers who had criticized Babar Azam and the team on TV screens not too long ago and had retired from the national team.
You brought them back into the team. Where was your vision and judgment? Admit that this decision was wrong. Then the caretaker Sports Minister Wahab Riaz, who was appointed first as the Chief Selector and then the Senior Team Manager, reaching the dressing room, also violated merit. Were these decisions correct? The results of these two decisions are in front of you.
And now the news is that you are meeting with those former cricketers again who have been involved in almost every PCB setup for decades? Can we bring about change in cricket by bringing these same cricketers on board again?
Certainly, there are a few cricketers who can bring about changes with good communication with Pakistani cricketers. Bring them on board, but do so on merit and with specific targets, just like you give sales targets to the City 42 sales team.
There are very few Pakistani cricketers who have a good command of the English language, so why do you bring in foreign coaches? Our neighboring country India has English as its national language, yet for a long time, former Indian cricketers have been taking on the responsibilities of head coach. First, it was Ravi Shastri, now it’s Rahul Dravid, and Gautam Gambhir is being considered for the future.
Respectfully, I request that you either become a full-time Chairman of the Cricket Board and fix matters on a war footing or take charge of the Ministry of Interior and settle in Islamabad. May Allah be your supporter and helper.
