{"id":25207,"date":"2023-11-16T16:43:08","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T16:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/pcb-not-babar-should-take-the-heat-for-pakistans-world-cup-debacle\/"},"modified":"2023-11-16T16:43:08","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T16:43:08","slug":"pcb-not-babar-should-take-the-heat-for-pakistans-world-cup-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/pcb-not-babar-should-take-the-heat-for-pakistans-world-cup-debacle\/","title":{"rendered":"PCB, not Babar, should take the heat for Pakistan\u2019s World Cup debacle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p>\u2018What exactly is going on with the PCB?\u2019 is one question we should all ask.<\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>The lacklustre performance that we saw during Pakistan\u2019s World Cup campaign has sent the \u2018bleed green\u2019 fanbase into an abyss, akin to the Green Shirts\u2019 unceremonious exit in 2015\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>A team reshuffle and \u2018where we go from here\u2019 promises are always a typical approach to failed tournaments, but as a fan, I am fed up with how the players take the flak but never the cricket board.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, top-order batter Babar Azam <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1789594\/babar-azam-says-stepping-down-as-pakistan-cricket-captain-in-all-formats\">announced<\/a> that he had stepped down as the Pakistan cricket captain in all formats. Babar didn\u2019t mention a specific reason for his decision but it comes on the heels of the team\u2019s disastrous run in the ICC World Cup in India.<\/p>\n<p>The poor performances have been deconstructed and dissected ad nauseam over the past few weeks. There is no need for another play-by-play of how badly the Green Shirts performed in the World Cup.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1789765\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>But what is needed is to pin some of the blame on the PCB. While the team shoulders the responsibility for its performance in the World Cup, the PCB is not blameless and has played the biggest part in our failure in the event.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan have already announced replacements for Babar in the Test and T20 side, with Shan Masood as the captain for the red ball and Shaheen Shah Afridi to lead the side in the shortest format of the game. There are no questions regarding Shaheen\u2019s ability to lead the T20 side having won two back-to-back PSL trophies with Lahore Qalandar. But a complete upheaval every four years cannot be the answer to Pakistan\u2019s problem.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right    media--uneven  media--stretch\"><figcaption class=\"media__caption  \">PCB chief Zaka Ashraf (L) shakes hands with Babar Azam during a meeting at the PCB headquarters in Lahore.\u2014AFP \/PCB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>It also appears that the PCB has lost its faith in the coaching staff. It announced yesterday that the portfolio of the entire coaching staff would be changed, which is a knee-jerk reaction and another attempt at deflecting responsibility. How can a string of losses from a team that was number one in ODI rankings a little over two months ago merit a complete upheaval of the backroom staff?<\/p>\n<p>Babar\u2019s exit as the captain, while <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thenews.com.pk\/latest\/1127784-pakistan-skipper-babar-azam-likely-quit-captaincy-after-world-cup-2023\">not surprising<\/a>,<br \/>\nraises several important questions \u2014 including the crucial question of who will lead the ODI team \u2014 and necessitates careful reflection from the PCB.<\/p>\n<p>But instead of introspection, the PCB once again it seems, has pinned the responsibility for what can only be called an utter failure to behave professionally \u2014 during a World Cup \u2014 with their captain, while trying to sweep its own obvious failures under the rug.<\/p>\n<p>The fact is that the PCB has seen three chiefs \u2014 Ramiz Raja, Najam Sethi, and Zaka Ashraf \u2014 during the past couple of years. The country\u2019s richest sports body has lacked continuous and proper management as the country\u2019s prime minister holds the reins of the cricketing administration. Drastic transformations in the domestic structure by various PCB regimes since 2019 have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1789363\/pcb-should-accept-the-bulk-of-blame-for-pakistan-fiasco\">kept Pakistan cricket topsy-turvy<\/a>. PCB\u2019s conduct prior to the World Cup was a good sign for the nation as the board looked ready to back the national team. But its internal politics have very clearly hindered the team\u2019s performance in the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Let us look at how PCB themselves have performed during the World Cup.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"what-exactly-is-going-on-with-the-pcb\" href=\"#what-exactly-is-going-on-with-the-pcb\" class=\"heading-permalink\" aria-hidden=\"true\" title=\"Permalink\"\/>What exactly is going on with the PCB?<\/h2>\n<p>This is one question that we should all ask. The board had backed Babar as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1747013\">skipper<\/a> since April but suddenly looked to cut its losses when things began taking a turn for the worse. After Pakistan\u2019s three consecutive losses in the World Cup, the PCB issued a very questionably timed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1783861\">press release<\/a>. When the team was already under pressure, why did the board feel it important to say that Babar and then-chief selector Inzamamul Haq were \u201cgiven freedom and support\u201d in forming the squad for the World Cup? They should be given \u201cfreedom and support\u201d to pick the team but it is a stretch to imply that they alone are responsible for what happens on the field.<\/p>\n<p>Also, the PCB said that it would make decisions in the best interest of Pakistan cricket <em>going forward<\/em>. Shouldn\u2019t that have always been the board\u2019s first priority? It\u2019s not exactly unheard of for a sports board to make decisions for the betterment of the sport it represents.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s return to the PCB\u2019s handling of controversies which occurred during the World Cup. Inzamam stepped down as chief selector after media reports claimed he had a stake in a player\u2019s management company registered with the PCB.  The whole fiasco took place when Pakistan were still in the fight for the last semi-final spot. As Inzamam himself <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1787591\">pointed out<\/a>, the allegations against him could have been investigated after the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, Babar\u2019s private WhatsApp conversations were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1785163\">leaked<\/a> on television, in a gross violation of the batter\u2019s privacy. According to the host of the talk show, the PCB chief Zaka Ashraf himself <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/cricket-pakistan-ashraf-world-cup-70e48eaa4ccd64954b8d7e52fa84dd24\">allegedly gave permission<\/a> to display the messages. Logically, the board should have come out and defended a player\u2019s right to privacy. But we have the PCB chief himself giving permission to violate a player\u2019s privacy.<\/p>\n<p>So my question now is: after Babar Azam  \u2014 one of Pakistan\u2019s greatest-ever batters \u2014 stepped down as captain, will Zaka Ashraf consider following suit?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018What exactly is going on with the PCB?\u2019 is one question we should all ask. The lacklustre performance that we saw during Pakistan\u2019s World Cup campaign has sent the \u2018bleed green\u2019 fanbase into an abyss, akin to the Green Shirts\u2019 unceremonious exit in 2015\u2019s World Cup. A team reshuffle and \u2018where we go from here\u2019 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/11\/16123803b67f995.jpg?r=124512","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}