Under a grey sky at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, veteran Bangladesh cricketer Shakib Al Hasan smashed Pakistani leg-spin bowler Abrar Ahmed for a boundary that sealed his team's six-wicket victory in the second Test match and a historic first men's Test series win over the home side.
Shakib punched the air and hugged teammate Mushfiqur Rahim as the rest of his teammates ran onto the ground to join in the celebrations on Tuesday afternoon. Before the series, Bangladesh had lost 12 of the 13 matches between the two teams.
As Pakistan captain Shan Masood and his team struggled off the field, dark clouds reflected the gloom surrounding Pakistan cricket. The men's team had just been swept aside in a home Test series for only the second time in its history.
Pakistan have not won a Test match at home since February 2021 – a winless streak of 10 games.
What has gone wrong with the Pakistan cricket team?
Historically, Pakistan may have been one of cricket's powerhouses, but their recent performances have plummeted across all formats of the game. Victories in the ICC Men's 50-overs World Cup in 1992 and the T20 World Cup in 2009 are a distant memory.
Be it defeats against lower-ranked teams in bilateral series or surprising results in global events, Pakistani cricket fans have seen it all in the past few years.
Pakistan's last notable performance came in November 2022 at the T20 World Cup in Australia, where they eventually lost a one-sided final against England.
What have been Pakistan's results since November 2022?
Pakistan failed to make it past the first round at the 2024 T20 World Cup when they infamously lost to cricket newbies USA, who only qualified for the tournament as one of the co-hosts.
In the run-up to the tournament, Pakistan lost a T20 match against Ireland for the first time.
At the 2023 Cricket World Cup in India, Pakistan lost five of their nine matches and exited the tournament at the group stage.
Of their last five Test series, Pakistan have won one – away to Sri Lanka in July 2023.
In numbers:
- Evidence: Played 12, won 2, lost 8, tied 2
- ODI: Played 25, won 14, lost 10, no result 1
- T20: Played 54, won 25, lost 26, drew 1, no result 2
What happened to cricket in Pakistan? When I was playing in the PSL, the level of that league was tremendous, the players had a very good work ethic and the youngsters who participated were magical.
What's going on there?
— Kevin Pietersen🦏 (@KP24) August 26, 2024
Can anyone explain why Pakistan has been so poor?
It's a tough one, but Al Jazeera asked Micky Arthur, who was Pakistan's head coach from 2016 to 2019 and oversaw affairs as team manager in 2023.
Arthur believes Pakistan does not lack “quality players”.
“There are some incredible players [on the Pakistan side]”But what the team lacks is stability,” Arthur said moments after Pakistan's defeat in the second Test.
“Stability comes from the top: in team selection, consistency in player roles and making sure each player understands his role,” he explained.
“Instability in Pakistani cricket creates chaos and players end up playing for themselves because they don’t know what the next regime has in mind. This breeds mediocrity.”
Bangladesh rises to fourth place in the rankings #WTC25 Ranking after their historic series win over Pakistan! 🇧🇩👏#BCB #Cricket #Bangladesh #PAKvBAN #WTC25 image.twitter.com/eIpZLVfSTx
— Bangladesh Cricket (@BCBtigers) September 3, 2024
What is this “instability”?
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has been in a crisis since late 2022 when the federal government sacked then-chairman Ramiz Raja. Since then, the country's cricket governing body has been led by three presidents, each of whom has brought about a number of changes in the administrative staff and team leadership.
The current PCB chief, Mohsin Naqvi, has been in office since February 6 and also plays the role of Pakistan's interior minister.
How has it affected the team captaincy?
Pakistan's ignominious elimination in the group stages of the ODI World Cup in November was followed by the resignation of their captain, Babar Azam, from all formats.
The PCB decided to split the captain's role and handed over the reins of the Test team to Masood, while fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi was given the trust of the T20 leadership.
However, when Naqvi took over as PCB chairman, he sacked Afridi after just one series and reinstated Babar.
As for the ODI captaincy, the issue remains up in the air as Pakistan have not played in that format since November.
How many people have trained Pakistan since November 2022?
Seven! In chronological order, they are: Saqlain Mushtaq, Abdul Rehman (interim coach), Grant Bradburn, Mohammad Hafeez, Azhar Mahmood (interim coach), Gary Kirsten (current white-ball coach) and Jason Gillespie (current red-ball coach).
Arthur was Pakistan's coach when they won their last ICC title, the ICC Champions Trophy in 2017, and believes the revolving door policy is having a detrimental effect on the team.
“Every coach brings different ideas and has different roles for the players,” said the 56-year-old former South Africa coach.
“This creates uncertainty, inconsistency and forces players to start playing for themselves,” Arthur said.
Pakistan have a month to recover. Bangladesh played excellent cricket. England, who won 3-0 on their last visit in 2022, will be an even bigger challenge. There is a serious threat of back-to-back defeats at home. Time is very short… but what can be changed?
— Aatif Nawaz (@AatifNawaz) September 3, 2024
Who are some of the big-name players who have underperformed?
Babar, Afridi and Shadab Khan.
Arthur believes these three are “certainly very good players” but they can only be judged on their form.
“Sometimes players get obsessed with what’s going on around them instead of focusing on their form,” Arthur said.
In Test cricket, Babar and Afridi's numbers have taken a hit and former vice-captain and limited-overs specialist Shadab has failed to live up to expectations at ICC events. Here are his numbers across all formats since 2023:
Babar Azam (batting)
- Matches: 57
- Tickets: 61
- Races: 2,172
- Highest score: 151
- Average 37.44
- Success rate 88.25
- 100s: 3
- 1950s: 16
Shaheen Shah Afridi (bowling)
- Matches: 49
- Tickets: 54
- Portillos: 96
- Best bowling figures: 5-54
- Average: 24.19
- Economy rate: 5.1
- Hit rate: 28.4
- Five-wicket hauls: 1
Shadab Khan (all-rounder)
- Matches: 37
- Races: 462
- Highest score: 48
- Batting average: 18.48
- 100s: 0
- 50s: 0
- Portillos: 24
- Best bowling figures: 4-27
- Bowling average: 48.41
- Five-wicket hauls: 0
How did the captain react to the defeat?
Test captain Masood said he was “extremely disappointed” after the defeat against Bangladesh.
He summed it up: “We were excited about the season at home. The story has been the same as in Australia and we haven’t learnt the lesson. We thought we were playing good cricket in Australia but we weren’t getting the job done. That’s something we need to work on. It has happened four times during my tenure that we have let the opponent back into the competition after dominating.”
Five defeats in five Tests with Masood as captain. Should he resign?
Masood has struggled with his performances as a batsman since taking over the role of Test captain. He has scored 286 runs in five matches and has hit three half-centuries with a high score of 60.
But the tall left-handed hitter is not to blame, not entirely, according to Arthur.
“Shan Masood is going to be a very good captain but he needs time to develop his primary role of scoring runs,” the South African coach said.
“That’s where coaches and support staff come in.
“They have to be able to take that pressure off him so he can perform at his best on the pitch. When a captain is confident in his own game and feels supported, he ends up playing much better.”
Arthur said Masood is the “right person” who can be a very good captain if given time and support.
How has the PCB presidency responded?
Naqvi predicted more changes after Pakistan's loss to India in the T20 World Cup in June and called the move “surgery”.
And then, after the defeat in the first Test against Bangladesh, he said: “The problem is that [team] The selection committee does not have a pool of players to choose from.
“I talked about surgery because we need to fix our problems, but when we look at how to fix them, we don’t have any group of players that we can take advantage of. The whole system was a mess.”
