Comparisons have also been made about the role of politics in sports with the underwhelming performance of Pakistan in international cricket of late. As stated, there is a lack of accountability at the helm which is preventing achievement on the field.
Last week, Pakistan fell to ninth position on the ICC test rankings for the first time in over sixty years. The reason for the decline was attributed to the shocking loss to Bangladesh in the just concluded home test series.
This was the tenth and most embarrassing loss in home test matches and also as the team had previously embarrassed itself after getting knocked out in both the 50 over and T20 world cups the previous year.
Mohsin Naqvi, current PCB chairman, in charge of Cricket in the Pakistan province suffering from rising terrorist activity while serving as an interior minister in another capacity.
In the last 24 months Pakistan cricket has had four different coaches and three four different board chairman’s three different captains and several domestic competition formats which wrangles have been caused by analysts to political interference.
Team performance is affected by this especially when there are too many cooks in the kitchen, said Ahsan Iftikhar Nagia, a cricket journalist who was also a media manager of the Pakistan cricket board.
In the case of when we have such disorder and management of the board in particular chronic instability it is going to affect performances on the field, he explained to AFP.
Governments of sport – cricket as the most favourite sport in Pakistan, players glorified as national heroes being endorsed by famous brands, massive attendance for important games.
Given the population in the country of over 240 million, it is because of sports that cuts across many social barriers that gives political leverage selling sports.
After his team won the ODI cricket World Cup in 1992, former prime minister imran Khan went into politics using his international sports man achievements to rise into politics.
Little reports state that at enagvity inc he served three years as prime Minister between the years 2018-2022 but is currently said to be on detention regarding white-collar crimes, he states, were fabricated to prevent him from contesting elections earlier on in the year.
On March, 8 this past week he issued a statement while imprisoned with describes many of his complaints concerning his imprisonment and how political issues that he says are hindering him are the root cause of the problems in cricket.
“Certain people have been imposed as transits to carry out technical aspects of the sport especially cricket where there is none imposed such as naat mohsen naqa one qualified to ask why had naqa so called annihilated the team,” he said.
State institutions when filled with corrupt and incompetent people, he asserted, are the reasons for the collapse of nations.
Patrimonialism as well as patronage forms the order of the day in Pakistan. One of the observations was that Khan had a bold and manifest agenda to curb graft, yet it was the great military establishment which aided him clinch the elections and perhaps into power.
Unfortunately, these were the times when our national cricket team was in shambles with the national cricketer best being arrogant to the point of instigating civil uprisings and appointing his choice PCB lords and interfering with the domestic cricket structure.
‘Complete lack of comprehension about the sport’
Times journalist who served as pcb chairman on three different occasions Najam Sethi said that the ‘career’ had turned into a respect stimulus even making sure to occupy it.
“Generals, judges and bureaucrats, appointing cricket administrators just for a love of the game i.e. others without any knowledge of the game,” he said.
“Also, the cricketers with and understanding of the game without and understanding of management have also been appointed.”
The Last time Pakistan played and won the tasre test was in February 2021 and their last ‘major and significant’ victory was at the 2017 ICC Champions trophy.
They came close to immediately capturing the T20 title; however, they finished as the most significant success in reaching the finals. However, they suffered a surprising defeat in the opening round of the 2024 competition, losing to Ireland and the United States of America.
Naqvi and those who placed him there have been the focus of increased attention from parliament and the media after Bangladesh’s loss, with calls for his sacking.
The Express Tribune : “Since 1998, once a ruling regime comes to power, a hard core of partisans buddying with the ruling power take turns as PCB chairmen and equally clueless manage the game, only to spoil it inexplicably.”
“I have already told that too much energy is being spent on their individual issues which mostly concern the individual’s skin or the individual‘s seat or how much one can earn out of the cricket economy of the country.”
Irony of Naqvi holding both positions soon became obvious when journalist gathered for a news conference and discussion included the issues of both a mass casualty ‘terrorist’ attack and cricket.
This week, Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif’s confidant and close associate Rana Sanaullah Khan appeared rather, it seems , hinting at how support for PCB chief is slowly ebbed away from the top.
“It is down to him” whether he wants to continue working, he said to – local news channel – ARY. “These two jobs are two full time jobs.”
