LONDON
\nPakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi has labelled claims of cricket being finished in the country as \u201cunreasonable\u201d, citing Pakistan\u2019s improved rankings under his tenure to prove otherwise. \u201cSouth Africa lost to Namibia, India lost to Ireland. At least check there, has cricket finished there?\u201d said Naqvi while speaking to reporters in London on Wednesday.
\nThe PCB has received much criticism for the mid-series shakeup during the national team\u2019s Test tour of England, in which seven players and two coaches from the initial squad were replaced after heavy defeats in Headingley and Lords.
\nThe decision gathered the ire of fans, pundits and former players alike. Former Pakistan captain Azhar Ali was one of them \u2014 while speaking to Dawn on Wednesday, he said that difficult decisions like these cause \u201cinsecurity among the players,\u201d and that they need to be made within stable frameworks.
\nNaqvi, however, believes it inappropriate to claim that Pakistan cricket is at its worst, and that the white-ball teams have shown improvement in the recent past. \u201cYou used to be ranked eighth in ODIs, which has now gone up to fifth. You have had six ODI series, out of which you have won four, but still, our cricket is finished,\u201d he said, resorting to sarcasm.
\n\u201cOur success rate has gone up from 24 pc to 73pc, and I\u2019m not talking about just one or the other specific match, but still, our cricket is finished.\u201d Naqvi added that while everyone retained the right of criticism and to ask why certain games had been lost, and that the team\u2019s performance in Test cricket required much improvement, it was unfair to deem it a terminal decline.
\n\u201cThose players who have never achieved anything in their lives, when they talk along these lines, that\u2019s unreasonable,\u201d he said, adding that he sought opinions from ex-players constantly. He also said it is called a problem regardless of whether players are retained or removed, and that ultimately the board is \u201conly answerable for the results.\u201d
\n\u201cSometimes there are mistakes made in selection as well. I am answerable for that, and we need to work on it,\u201d he said, adding that sometimes it was necessary to remove players if they do not perform. \u201cThe purpose is not to kick someone out, but to change them in case they are not clicking,\u201d he said, giving the example of Salman Ali Agha, who was stand-in captain for the first Test but was subsequently dropped from the playing XI and then the squad altogether.
\nHe added that it was not possible to take a team from number nine to number one in a matter of three or six months, and that there was \u201ca long way to go\u201d.\u201dThese are facts you can check and verify yourselves, if they are wrong, we are responsible,\u201d he said, \u201cbut the way you are demotivating the boys, please stop doing that.\u201d Naqvi also added that the scorn for these decisions has come as criticism of himself.\u201dActually, they just want to drive me out, nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi has labelled claims of cricket being finished in the country as \u201cunreasonable\u201d, citing Pakistan\u2019s improved rankings under his tenure to prove otherwise. \u201cSouth Africa lost to Namibia, India lost to Ireland. At least check there, has cricket finished there?\u201d said Naqvi while speaking to reporters in London …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":102553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102571"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102582,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102571\/revisions\/102582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}