Asia Cup: Wracked by instability, will Pakistan cricket go the hockey way?

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Two ex-Pakistan Cricket Board chairmen – Ramiz Raja and Najam Sethi – got together with the incumbent Mohsin Naqvi in a common space to discuss a common crisis, celebrated a common “victory” and spoke to the media about the common goal of making Pakistan a great cricketing nation again. The visuals saw them hugging, smiling and shaking hands, like long-lost friends rather than antagonists who had flung accusations at each other over the last four years.

Towards the end of the press conference, keeping aside the Dubai no-handshake drama, Naqvi momentarily reflected on his team’s performance in the tournament: “We will review this tournament and whatever weakness emerges, my promise is we will sit together and solve.”

Review is often a word used after losing a series badly or a premature exit from a tournament. But Pakistan’s drop in standards, despite regulation victories over minnows UAE and Oman, has been so perceptible in the Asia Cup that fears of an imminent fall from mediocrity to ignominy are not irrational. It has not so such been a question of diminishing talent as it is a case of gaping structural flaws and colossal mismanagement, the country’s cricket churning in an endless cycle of hope and regret.

The evidence on the field is nauseating. The batting has been a cruel parody of their batting legacy; no one seems to know which batsman should bat where. Hasan Nawaz cracked the fastest T20I hundred by a Pakistan batsman in Auckland last year, yet walks in at No.5. Sahibzada Farhan was injected as an antidote to Pakistan’s conservative batting approach. His strike rate, in the tournament, has been 87.05. Saim Ayub, his partner and touted the most thrilling T20 batsman of his country, has three ducks in four balls.

Pakistan UAE Asia Cup Pakistani players celebrate after defeating United Arab Emirates during the Asia Cup cricket match at Dubai International Cricket Stadium, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

The middle order is brittle, unable to seize moments and are wrecks against the turning ball. But for the expertise of Fakhar Zaman, their batting in the tournament has been closer to the standards of associate nations than the elites.

Bowlers have often been the redeemers against the smaller teams, but often get exposed when encountering more evolved batting firms. Shaheen Shah Afridi doesn’t hit the blockhole as frequently or accurately as he once used to; the curve in the air into right-handed batsmen is but a moth-eaten memory. The speed seldom stretches the speedometers. Worse, there is no one keeping him on his toes, no bustling teenager from the back-of-beyond to jeopardise his spot in the side. Afridi is a walking metaphor for Pakistan’s state of stasis – once destined to reawaken his side’s world-conquering ambitions, but now struggling to redeem himself.

Alarming situation

A freefall as severe as the West Indies in scale and sweep is not beyond the realms of possibility. Former wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal, who played in far rosier times, fears Pakistan cricket could plummet like the country’s hockey. “It is happening with planning; it is being pulled down,” he says.

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Shoaib Akhtar, numbed by the tepid display against India, fumed: “The difference is clear now. Other teams are playing at a very high level, but we can’t even manage club-level cricket, even though there is no shortage of cricketing talent in the country.”

This is the Pakistan paradox. It has talent, charisma and cricket hard-wired into its daily life. Except for power, stability, and settled structures. No cricketing nation could thrive if it has regular changes in board chairmen, each change coinciding with a change in government.

Each chairman brings his own plans and personnel, but has to leave the office even before one gets used to the physical chair. In the last five years alone, they have had five different chairmen. Naqvi, 17 months into his tenure, is the longest serving one. Raja lasted barely three months before being ousted; Sethi, in his fourth tenure, survived only seven months, followed by Zaka Ashraf’s six-month reign.
As always, the appointments have a political subtext. Naqvi, for instance, is the interior affairs minister and considered the second-in- charge of the country. Blunt questions have been posed about the merit of his appointment.

“Favourites have been imposed to run a technical sport like cricket. What are Mohsin Naqvi’s qualifications?” asked Imran Khan, the former Pakistan captain and prime minister. “Nations are destroyed when corrupt and incompetent people are placed in positions of power in state institutions.”
Instability has a ripple effect. Captains, coaches and selectors have been hired and fired with bewildering frequency. The journey from being a messiah to pariah is frighteningly short. In the past four years, five different permanent coaches, apart from as many interim ones, have passed through the ficklest carousel in cricket terminal. Contrastingly, India has had only three in the last eight years.

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Coaches galore

Celebrated foreign coaches arrived, among them Gary Kirsten, Mickey Arthur and Jason Gillespie. Local legends were tried, like Saqlain Mushtaq and Aaqib Javed. Three have captained them across 34 Tests in the last five years. The 50-over format has been comparatively stable, with Mohammed Rizwan and Babar Azam splitting 63 games between them in this time. Most fitful has been T20Is – six have led them this year.

Inevitably, players have flown in and out of teams. From Asia Cup 2022 to 2025, they have handed out T20Is caps to 28 different players. Only six of them have featured in more than 20 games. From August 2021, they have had 26 different selectors. One of them, Inzamam-ul-Haq, had to resign midway through the 2023 World Cup because he was a stakeholder in a milk-based beverage firm which was co-owned by a player agent. A raft of celebrated former players had been in the panel, such as Mohammad Yousuf, Wahab Riaz and Abdul Razzaq, but none lasted long.

The vision under current coach Mike Hesson is clear and simple. Pakistan want to play like all modern and successful teams, an attacking, entertaining brand that could fill both hearts and galleries. But will Hesson get the time to implement his ideas, will he get the men he wants, will the players not stumble into regional cliques? Or will Naqvi get the time to successfully complete “a major surgery”, or practise his plan to select teams relying “80% by AI and 20% using humans”? Or will they show as much unity for the betterment of Pakistan cricket as they did during the non-handshake-gate drama?

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