Loud Thinking April 25, 2015 at 06:31PM

An Open Letter to the President of Pakistan (written after SA tour on 27 March, 2013).

Mr. Asif Ali Zardari,

Dear Sir,

As, it may well be in your knowledge, that the game of cricket, is the biggest passion of the masses of Pakistan.
Any victory of our cricket team boosts the morale of the people. At the same time defeats of our team, demoralises the entire nation.

However, since our people are very knowledgable about the game of cricket, they back our team even when it’s defeated, if the players have gone down fighting. But, in any case, tame surrender is never digested and the anger is often vented with slogans, processions and violence against the players and the PCB. People also curse the government, because, every body knows that PCB chairman is appointed only, as a favour by the President.

Mr. President, you appointed Mr. Ijaz Butt, as the chairman PCB; and the whole world knows, how much damage was caused, due to his sheer incompetence, to the name and image of the country and the game of cricket, due to his sheer incompetence.

Again, you appointed Ch. Zaka Ashraf (who is your known buddy), but the way our team has suffered and its performance has gone down from bad to worse (mainly due to highest degree of management failures at the PCB level), is not hidden from anybody.

The latest debacle in South African tour, is an eye opener.

In Test matches, we were white washed 3-0; and we also created our lowest innings score record, by being all out at 49 runs.

We won the only T20 match played in the 2 matches series, just because South Africa didn’t field their B team, but they selected their C level team, as an experiment to give a chance to their youngsters.

In the ODI series, Pakistan lost 3-2 in a very comprehensive manner.

In Pakistan, there is no dearth of talent of the young and upcoming players, but the PCB went to such an extent that it recalled Younis Khan, from the retirement and inducted him into the ODI team.

The whole tenure of Ch. Zaka Ashraf bespeaks of inertia and of not adopting the policy of investing in future. Mostly, the man management policies of the PCB has been retrogressive, which has resulted in an immense damage, to the future of cricket in Pakistan.

Mr. Iqbal Qasim, who was made chief selector, made such huge blunders like dropping Abdur Rehman, Junaid Khan and Ahmad Shahzad from the T20 World Cup team. This man Iqbal Qasim, was such a HUGE failure in his last tenure as chief selector, that he had to resign from the post, after the team lost 14 consecutive matches in a trot.

This fact can be gauged from the ground reality, that the 11 players which played Sunday’s ODI, included 6 oldies namely, Misbah, Younis Khan, Shoaib Malik, Kamran Akmal, Imran Farhat & Shahid Afridi, who are known spent cartridges and past their prime. While very talented youngster, Ahmad Shahzad was sent back to Pakistan, after the only T20 match he played in South Africa. Moreover, two more youngsters Omar Akmal and Abdur Rehman, where not given a chance to play even a single ODI, during the 5 matches series.

Besides, the cases mentioned above, there is a long list of other failures of the present chairman PCB. It looks the English language idiom “Everyone rises to their level of incompetence” exactly fits on your close buddy, whom you made the chairman PCB.

Now, the stage has come that even Ijaz Butt, is looking genius, in comparison with Ch. Zaka Ashraf.

The failures of PCB are bringing a very bad name to you and your party.

As such, it is suggested that some very competent and high calibre person of international repute and stature like Mr. Raza Rabbani, Mr. Aitzaz Ahsan, Ms Asma Jahangir, Mr. Razzaq Dawood, Mr. Mian Mansha, Syed Baber Ali, Mr. Zafar Hilali, Mr. Shamshad Ahmad or Vice Admiral (R) Mahmood Ahmad Khan may be appointed the chairman PCB, with specific task of re-vamping the structure of the domestic cricket of Pakistan, to bring it at a level, where foreign players will be attracted, to play our domestic cricket; and secondly, Pakistani cricket teams of all the three versions of the game, must attain world # 1 ranking, in a given time period.

Best regards,

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad

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