After a bruising white-ball tour of New Zealand, Ben Gardner reflects on Pakistan's continued spiral down the ranks of international cricket, and considers whether a solution exists to their current predicament.
Because this is Pakistan, there’s always something to cling to. Their tour of New Zealand has seen them beaten comprehensively in six out of seven games so far, but in the seventh, they completed one of T20I cricket’s standout chases, 200-plus gunned down with four overs to spare, a record for a total that big. The star that day tells the story, 22-year-old Hassan Nawaz, in his first series in international cricket, smashing 105 unbeaten from 45 balls. His other four innings contained just one run between them.
And yet zoom out, and that result looks like what it is: an anomaly. No longer are Pakistan a side who veer from the sublime to the sub-standard from game to game. Instead, they are a mediocre side whose flashes of brilliance are spotted less and less frequently.
One win and six losses in 2025.
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) April 3, 2025
What according to you, is going wrong with Pakistan’s ODI team?#NZvsPAK #Cricket pic.twitter.com/Ufa2HXnolT
The pattern is no longer one of unpredictability. Pakistan have failed to make the second stage of any of the last three major tournaments, including a first-round exit at the hands of USA in the 2024 T20 World Cup. They have consistently slid down the World Test Championship, from sixth in 2019-21, to seventh in 2021-23, to last in the most recent cycle. Increasingly, it’s no longer the case that you don’t know which Pakistan is going to turn up. This is just their level.
How quickly things can change. Cast your minds back to the MCG, 2022’s T20 World Cup final. Shaheen Shah Afridi looked to have taken the catch that had tilted the game Pakistan’s way, sliding in to dismiss Harry Brook to leave England four down with 52 still required. Instead, it was the moment the trophy turned towards England, the left-arm quick jarring his knee, managing just one more delivery before hobbling off. Still, the overriding feeling then was of a young team brimming with promise, free from the scars of Pakistan cricket’s worst days and shielded from the barbs of the present by Babar’s unknowable aura. That core - Naseem, Babar, Shadab, Shaheen, Rizwan - has since been splintered and scattered, bonds tested by internal politics, the captaincy handed back and forth without purpose or plan. None are first choice in all forms any more. It’s not inconceivable that Shaheen, at 24 years old, has played his last Test.
This wanton wastage is a common theme, and while the wellspring of talent means there will always be another player, another textbook right-hander schooled in the ways of Inzamam and Yousuf, another quick whose only reason for being is to target the base of the stumps as quick as their body will allow, the burning through of each starlet is still a small tragedy. Take Ihsanullah, the breakout phenomenon of the 2023 Pakistan Super League, who arrived on the scene as an instant contender for the title of ‘World’s Fastest Bowler’. It took all of a few months to break him through careless overuse. What came next was even sadder, with botched rehab, mangled surgery and a build-up of scar tissue meaning he might never reach beyond 85mph again. The PCB’s chief medical officer resigned, but the damage had been done.
Jason Gillespie has revealed the reasons for his resignation as red-ball coach of the Pakistan team.
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) December 16, 2024
Read here ➡️ https://t.co/wo0SLO1mRF pic.twitter.com/Ea3HezOvAL
Further up, there’s the coaching merry-go-round. Pakistan’s philosophy lurches from wanting a domestic coach who knows the system inside-out to needing an international coach who can bring some neutral perspective on a monthly basis, and now it seems no one wants the gig. Aqib Javed is the interim, a fact made more explicit with every reversal, but who would take the job full time? Jason Gillespie, who pointedly referred to himself as a “match-day strategist” by the end of his tenure such was the lack of control he could exert, didn’t even really bother resigning, instead just not boarding the plane to the next tour and figuring that Pakistan would figure it out. Now he’s not sure he ever wants to coach again. Javed puts the count at 26 selectors and 16 coaches in the last two years.
In the past, it’s always been possible to find the humour in any Pakistan misfortune. The soap opera behind the scenes and the rolling cast of ex-pros saying absurd things in glitzy TV studios offer plenty of opportunity for mirth, but there’s also always the sense that nothing that happens is really that serious. If they’re down today, they’ll be up tomorrow. Perhaps the ability to make light of the situation has even helped to draw the sting out of each catastrophe.
Now, however, there has to be genuine fear that we will never see a sustained, world-class Pakistan side again, pushed as they are towards the margins of world cricket, on the outside looking in as the rest cash in on an Indian windfall. Increasingly, Pakistan’s players are deprived of the opportunity to both earn and improve in the game’s best leagues. There’s no official stance saying Pakistan players can’t play for IPL owned teams, but that only makes it harder to combat, even with the few exceptions that sneak through.
The PCB meanwhile, for all their self-inflicted wounds, also have to compete knowing they can never count on a tour from India to prop up the coffers, as other countries rely on, while the Champions Trophy debacle has surely put an end to their hopes of ever truly hosting a global event again. Over £30 million was invested in upgrading three stadiums for the competition, only for rain and a bastardized schedule to see just seven games played to a finish in the country.
What you can always come back to is the talent. Next week, the Pakistan Super League will start. Perhaps a new superstar will emerge. Maybe those lost souls will find their way again. But look at the big picture, and you have a national board financially hamstrung, at odds with the most powerful organisation in the game, and hell bent on mismanagement at every turn. It’s hard to see how the next upswing will come.
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