KARACHI: Former Chief Selector Haroon Rasheed on Friday said this is not the first time Pakistan has not managed to do well in a global event.
Pakistan lost three of its four games in the World T20, failing to reach the semi-finals.
In the Asia Cup T20, too, Pakistan only managed to win games against Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates, while losing comprehensively to India and Bangladesh.
“I don’t believe in players’ accountability,” Rasheed said. “If team wins, then all is well, but if it loses then nobody steps up to take the responsibility,” he added.
Rasheed, 63, asked his critics to name a single player from the country who was not given his due chance.
“This is wrong that Waqar Younis was not given his desired players. I can name at least 10 people who were included on Waqar’s call.”
The former right-handed batsman, who represented Pakistan in 23 Tests and 12 one-day internationals, termed the dismal state of Pakistan’s domestic structure as a reason for the team’s continuous poor show.
“Pakistan’s domestic cricket structure needs to be revamped. [Such is the state] that Pakistan team starts every international match with a deficit of 20-25 runs.
“Opposition teams are easily capable of converting their singles into twos and twos into threes, and on the other hand, Pakistan batsmen cannot even convert their singles into doubles,” he said.
This is the best we have got: Azhar Mahmood
Azhar Mahmood, who could not live up to the people’s expectations when asked to coach Pakistani bowlers for Asia Cup T20 and World T20, termed the current crop of players as “the best the country has got”.
“There is no division within the team ranks; it is just that the players are not good enough. Ask them to train more than 10 minutes and nobody will take it seriously,” Mahmood said.
“Players lack confidence. And if a player is dropped from the team, he will start rallying against the captain,” he added.
Mahmood, who once was Pakistan team’s most reliable all-rounder, also criticised Shahid Afridi for the mistakes he committed as captain.
“There are players in the team who only play for their own selves.
“Besides, there are trust issues within the team. Discussions we used to have during our team meetings were somehow leaked to the media,” the 41-year-old former all-rounder said.
Mahmood, though, maintained that Mohammad Amir is the country’s “best” bowler, and said others do not “stick to the plan”.