[tanvir_nus]

Timely thread, I wanted to write up something close to this. I have been following Pakistan cricket closely for the past year as well as the fans. They have been on a decline that is for sure, but their true potential I feel is still hidden.

The reason why their test team keeps doing so well is because of their stable batting order, from 1 to 7 they know which batsmen are going to bat at what positions and it does not change much. Each of them have a defined role and their team combination in tests have been solid. Hence they have seen some good results, not long ago they were actually ranked the first team while they had slided to number 9 position in the ODI. I kept asking myself what was the reason behind the ODI team's dismal ranking?

There are a couple of factors there, I feel they miss the home support. It is one of the major factors for sure, at home you get cheered by home supporters and you have the air of familiarity around you and you are comfortable. Your mind is less cluttered, and that's why in Cricket you can see a great difference in performance in home and away matches, because cricket has a lot to do with the mental side of things.

Their board president seems like an a$$ to me though, he just recently said that this may be Azhar's last series. NO WAY in hell that is a smart thing to do, in Bangladesh he will be crucified if he said that. They also continuously select 3/4 left armers in their squad. Doesn't matter how many Amirs you have, you are building up a one dimensional attack. So I feel with some tweaks to their squad, they could become even better.

Ok now down to comparisons with us, this is what I feel. In a nutshell, compare the current team to the team 10 years back, and compare that team to the team 20 years back, do you see what I see? We are on the rise, there is a reason people say that Bangladesh will produce the most exciting players in the next decade. The reason is plain and simple, everyone is playing cricket in Bangladesh now. So what you see now, you are going to see 10X bigger and better in the coming years. I feel the golden years haven't even started for us. We will have our own brand of cricket and it is different from the unpredictability of the Pakistani side, that is because ours revolves more around a system rather than an enigma.

I know I am going to be condemned for saying this. While Imran Khan is probably the biggest cricketer coming out from Pakistan he has created an unimaginable problem for them. They need to understand this. Everyone tries to be an Imran Khan in Pakistan and in times of need everyone thinks what Imran would have done. All their answers revolve around Imran Khan, when Imran basically was an anomaly. Imran Khan selected his own team to the world cup, he was given that power, he came back from retirement because the prime minister/president begged him to come back. He had unlimited power and he used that to Pakistan's advantage and complete his mission of winning the world cup. But ever since that, Imran Khan has become the template for success, when the template is not repeatable. If you go through the system, you can repeat the success more, sure you will get lucky and win here and there but you won't be able to dominate and win consistently if you don't build on the system.

That is what Bangladesh is doing better than Pakistan atm I feel. We have a better system, we know the players coming up, who is our next captain, who is the captain 10 years from now, who needs to be disciplined, everything basically. Our pipleline is going to get stronger and stronger and it will be a matter of time we win in auto-pilot mode because you are not going to be ranked number 1 if you don't win in auto-pilot mode and if you try hard each time.

Anyways, to summarize, currently Pakistan is well ahead in tests and they do have potential to do even better, they need to think about replacing Misbah and Younus right now while both of them are in the team, this will train those new guys and also they won't dig themselves a huge hole, something like what happened to Sri Lanka when Sanga and Mahela retired. They need to have a maximum of 2 left arm seamers in the squad at any given time, they need to probably change their board president to start it off.