Omair Alavi|Sports|February 2, 2020
The Pakistan Cricket Board has made quite a few childish mistakes in the recent past
Every Test-playing nation is run by administrators who know the game and who have an idea regarding making money and facilitating the public at the same time. However, in the case of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), there seems to be only a handful of people who have international exposure (CEO Waseem Khan, Director Media and Communications Sami ul Hasan Burney) and can operate a tablet (the computer thingy!) at the same time.
With the year 2020 entering its second month, it is the right time to induct fresh blood in the Board so that they make decisions based on logic and not on an experience that is no more valid. Let’s analyse some of the mistakes the PCB made recently so that they can overcome them once the Pakistan Super League is over.
Who schedules a T20I on a Monday?
This was not the first time PCB hosted an international team, nor was it the last. Yet, they keep making childish mistakes that would even bring a smile on the faces of those representing the other side. They hosted three T20 Internationals against Bangladesh last month but not one of them on a Sunday. They should know that any kind of matches, be it one-day, T20 or even Test, are more profitable and convenient on a Sunday than on any other day. Yet the first match was played on a Friday at a time when most of the country was offering Friday prayers (toss was held at 1:30pm, and the match started at 2pm). The second was held on a Saturday (perfect timing) and the third and final one on Monday!
Shouldn’t they be checking the weather beforehand?
Sadly, the third match (on a Monday) was abandoned due to rain and the series was limited to just two T20Is, the attendance in which was below expectations. Had somebody in the Board thought of checking rain predictions on their mobile phones when they were preparing the series schedule, it would have helped everyone but sadly, we don’t seem to think that far. Last year, Pakistan and Sri Lanka’s ODI was rained off which went down as the first-ever match to be abandoned in Karachi due to rain. Sad, when you think that we are in the new millennium and every other person has a mobile phone in his hand!
Is social media a good guy or the bad guy?
Everything from team announcement to itinerary release gets posted on PCB’s Twitter whereas the management is now arranging for individual interview sessions with the players, which is a step in the right direction. PCB seems to have realised the power of social media but when the same platform criticises them for the right reasons, they don’t seem to be much attentive. Had they been so, Abid Ali would have been in the national team long before 2019, Imam ul Haq would have been punished for his lewd messages and Fawad Alam might not have been dropped after just a handful of Test matches and who knows, he might have been the Test Captain of Pakistan.
Shouldn’t the YouTube content be monitored?
When a player who has represented Pakistan is allowed to appear on national TV and private channels, why shouldn’t he be allowed to own a YouTube channel? Because on YouTube, there is no producer on the panel to guide the person on camera that whatever he is saying might get a backlash. We have also found out the hard way that no one discusses the truth when they are on YouTube. The case that made most of us realise that is the one featuring Shoaib Akhtar and Danish Kaneria. Many journalists including this scribe have been a witness to Shoaib Akhtar’s ill-treatment of Mohammad Yousuf in the dressing room (when he was Yousuf Youhana, and preparing for the Indian tour of 1999) yet he claims that all team members but him treated Kaneria badly because of his religion. Everyone who has followed cricket in the 1990s and 2000s knows that this is crap because Kaneria was the main strike bowler during the era and had there been discrimination, he wouldn’t have been in the side.
Oh, and then there is a YouTube channel featuring the once all-powerful Inzamam ul Haq who claims that he had no personal grudge against Fawad Alam. So why didn’t he select him during his tenure as the chief selector when he was performing consistently in first class cricket? Instead of going for subscribers, these individuals should be made to sit in front of a competent panel on live television so that the truth can come out, and they should become a prey to their own hypocrisy.
