Former skipper and jailed PM Imran Khan blamed for Pakistan’s cricket downfall

New Delhi: Pakistan cricket team’s went on a downward spiral under the Prime Ministership tenure of Imran Khan, the country’s former skipper, believes ex-Pakistan Cricket Board’s chairman Najam Sethi.

Defending champions Pakistan crashed out of the ICC Champions Trophy after humiliating defeats to New Zealand in Karachi and India in Dubai. They are hosting a major global cricketing event since 1996 and have become the first team to exit the competition.

Sethi served as the PCB chief from December 2022 to June 2023 felt the people of the cricket-crazy nation are justifiably upset at the team’s performance.

“The cricket fraternity says Pakistan has hit rock bottom. How come a cricket team that was once no 1 in T20s (2018) and Tests (2016) and ODIs (1990 and 1996), which won the WC in 1992 and CT in 2017, is today equated with Zimbabwe?,” he wrote on social media platform X.

‘Ill-advised tweak’

Sethi believes the downfall of Pakistan began in 2019 when under then PM Khan, the Ehsan Mani-led PCB changed the domestic structure to adopt an Australian hybrid model.

“Political interference continued; contradictory PCB policies became the norm— foreign coaches were hired and sent packing, selectors were whimsically nominated, old discards were recruited to mentor and manage.

“Finally, player power, clash of captain egos and groupings in the team came to prevail over fumbling management! The horrible result is before us,” he wrote.

Sethi has quit as the PCB chairman to be succeeded by former ICC president Mani soon after Khan became the PM. The PCB then attempted a revamp of the domestic structure.

It introduced a six team first class structure in place of the old system of 16-18 departmental and regional association sides competing in domestic competitions.

Khan, who led Pakistan to victory in the ODI World Cup in 1992, then appointed former batter Ramiz Raja as chairman in 2021 and was replaced by Sethi in December 2022 after the fall of the Khan-led government.

 Defending champions Pakistan crashed out of the ICC Champions Trophy after humiliating defeats to New Zealand in Karachi and India in Dubai.  Cricket Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today