by Abdul Habib
7th August 2010

After winning this mornings coin toss, Salman Butt strode over to the presenter to announce his decision to bat first. He was confident, well spoken and looked every inch the international captain that he now is. To the casual observer, his easy manner and insightful comments would've projected the aura of someone who has been doing this sort of thing for many years. At one point Salman pointed to an unfinished building behind him and compared it to his young, inexperienced team. He said that although this building was nothing to look at right now, that was because it was unfinished. He went on to invite the viewer to wait till the building was finished before judging its worth. The implication was clear. The Pakistan team is a work in progress and he was asking for time to turn this inexperienced side into a world beating unit. I'm sure I wasn't the only Pakistani watching who let himself hope that something had finally changed and that the team was now in good hands.

Personally (on an overcast day) I wouldn't have chosen to bat first but given the inexperienced batsmen at his disposal, I could see why Salman chose to let his batsmen set a total rather than making them chase one. Pakistan's openers started off solidly if a little slowly but given the overhead conditions it was clear that they wanted to work the shine off the ball before starting to build a total. Well that was the plan at the start of the match, it wasn't long before normal service was resumed and Pakistan were teetering on 36 runs for 6 wickets. Salman's brave words of just a few hours ago took on a new meaning. It was clear that the PCB had sold the tender for the Pakistan team's new building to the cheapest bidder. That's right Pakistan were the victim of cowboys, and yes the Indians were laughing.

When Salman made the connection between the unfinished building behind him and Pakistan's cricket team, I don't think he realised just how profound his analogy was. If you look back at Pakistan cricket over the last decade then all you will see is a string of unfinished buildings. An impressive but incomplete skyscraper here, an unfinished showpiece monument over there or the skeleton of a grand coliseum framed against the distant horizon. All these buildings were started with good intentions and the grandest of visions but within a couple of years or even a few months the work hit a stumbling block. Before you knew it the old building had been abandoned and a new one commissioned. It didn't matter whether it was because of a stubborn chairman, a proud selector or a shifty captain. The result was always the same, yet another unfinished building. The time invested in now out of favour players was wasted, the money spent on astronomical payouts couldn't be spent at the grassroots level and every fan was in despair as the latest architects of Pakistan cricket went back to the drawing board.

But where are Pakistan going wrong? Surely it can't be that difficult to build both a functional and a structurally sound building? In fact we can begin our plan on how to fix Pakistan cricket from the best way to build a building.

To start with every building needs a solid foundation and a good plan drawn up by a competent architect. They also need someone at the head of the project who is going to make the right things happen. If the PCB is serious about turning Pakistan cricket round then the first man who needs to go is Ijaz Butt. His ideal replacement would be Ehsan Mani, Ehsan is a man who has run the ICC and he will be able to bring the contacts and the plans needed to make the PCB a professional organisation. If he is to be brought in then he should be given a 5 year mandate and given free reign over appointing the people he needs in the important posts.

Next the PCB need to properly utilize the amazing array of knowledge and experience available to them. Pakistan has always been a cricketing powerhouse giving the world great cricketers of every conceivable type. Regardless if you're looking for an opening batsman (Anwar, Hanif), a middle order giant (Inzamam, Miandad, Zaheer), a quality keeper (Latif, Bari), a beguiling spinner (Qadir, Mushy, Saqi), a true all-rounder (Imran) or a world beating fast bowler (Fazal, Wasim, Waqar, Akhtar, Imran). You can be assured that Pakistan will have someone to not only fit the bill but to be one of the best in the world at that discipline. The variety of all time great talent that Pakistan has produced gives the PCB access to the sort of data bank that other teams would kill for. Despite all their success the West Indies and the Proteas would kill to tap into the brain of their own Qadir, Mushy or Saqlain. Teams like India and Sri Lanka have had decent fast bowlers but no-one of the calibre of a Fazal, Wasim, Imran or Waqar.

Any other team in the world would love to have players of that variety, quality and natural ability available to them. The PCB may prefer not to tap into this gold mine but other cricket boards aren't so stupid. The ECB snapped up Mushy in a heartbeat, the Indians have adopted Wasim and New Zealand have sought the counsel of Saqi. It's time the PCB learnt about how to honour their own legends from the actions of other more professional cricket boards!

Thirdly the PCB need to learn to honour the length of an appointment. If you appoint a coach, chief selector or captain for a set period then let them serve out that period. Chopping and changing these pivotal roles after every series defeat is a pointless exercise. How can anyone seriously expect a fickle and unstable policy to result in consistent results and employee loyalty. Much as the fans like to see Pakistani players as representatives of their nation, the truth of the matter is that they're PCB employees who are constantly fighting tooth and nail for the same 11 positions within their organisation. Imagine if every company went around (seemingly) randomly promoting employees to become the head of their department and then a few weeks, months later demoting that employee back into the same team they were leading and then promoting their most disruptive team member to lead the same team. Would any sane person expect that scenario to work out positively? Most companies will back their managers against disruptive employees and ensure that it's understood that not following your manager's instructions will be dealt with severely. The PCB is the only organisation in the world where you get rewarded for undermining your captain/manager by being promoted into his position and have him work for you!

Most new Pakistan captains achieve their position through bloodless coups, these are mostly achieved by forming groups against the current incumbent and forcing his ouster. What makes the PCB think that the sort of person who was undermining his own captain won’t undermine those players in his team who he thinks have aspirations to become captain themselves? When will the PCB realise that if you catch a burglar in your home you don’t let him stay in the master bedroom and give him the key to the front door! That's the fourth thing the PCB need to implement, they need to stop rewarding treachery and make sure that offenders are properly punished. This doesn't mean handing out ridiculously over the top punishments like life bans or million dollar fines to your best players! It means putting in place a transparent and consistent disciplinary procedure where no matter how important the player is he gets the same punishment for the same offence as the guy making his debut would get!

The fifth and probably the most important thing that the PCB and Pakistan cricket need to learn, is patience. The best teams in the world right now have shown patience to reach that level. England went through some rough times over the last decade but they persevered with their setup and committed to their players and officials. That sensible approach has seen them go from whipping boys to holding the whip hand. India didn't give up on the likes of Sehwag, Zaheer and Gambhir in the difficult early days and in the end that took them to the top of the rankings. South Africa picked a young batsman who immediately got into some spats with senior and more celebrated members of the South African team but the South African cricket board backed Graeme Smith. In the early days he made some poor decisions and results didn't always go his way but the SACB showed patience and continued to back him and today South Africa is arguably the best team in the world. If the PCB can learn to be patient and to back the people they choose to lead the Pakistan team then it's only a matter of time before Pakistan comes out of the other side of this nightmare.

But until the PCB implement the 5 points laid out above, they will continue to leave half finished buildings littering the timeline of Pakistan cricket. If the PCB was a town then it would be the ghost town of Qingshuihe County in China. Like the PCB that town is littered with unfinished buildings, a dream gone sour.