By Asher Butt
Pakistan’s Test tours of the West Indies and England have exposed something far more disturbing than a team going through a bad patch. The defeats, the batting collapses, the selection blunders and, finally, the extraordinary mid-tour purge have together revealed a cricket system that appears incapable of distinguishing between genuine reform and frantic activity. Pakistan did not merely lose matches. It repeatedly lost its way.
The West Indies tour should have been a warning. Instead, it became the prelude to the catastrophe in England.
Pakistan split the two-Test series in the Caribbean, winning the second Test by eight wickets after losing the opener by 90 runs. Yet even in defeat, the first Test contained the central disease that would later become impossible to disguise. Pakistan made 282 in reply to West Indies’ 311 and then, chasing only 211, collapsed to 120, with Babar Azam unbeaten on 58 while almost everyone around him disappeared. The numbers were not an isolated embarrassment. Pakistan had the worst second-innings batting average among the nine teams in the World Test Championship over the preceding two years — just 19.90 — with an extraordinary 11.03-point gap between their first- and second-innings averages.
The second Test temporarily disguised the disease. Abdullah Shafique produced a superb 160, Babar made 88, and Pakistan finally converted a strong position into victory. But even there the message was unmistakable: when the top order survived, Pakistan could compete; when it collapsed, there was precious little underneath it.
Then came England.
At Headingley, Pakistan were dismantled for 171 and 135, losing by an innings and 103 runs. Ollie Robinson and Josh Tongue exploited weaknesses that were not subtle. Pakistan’s batting was tentative, technically uncertain and unable to withstand sustained pressure. England made 409, with Harry Brook, Jordan Cox, Joe Root and Dan Lawrence all contributing substantial scores. Pakistan never recovered.
Lord’s was supposed to be the response. Instead, Pakistan produced 110 in the first innings. Robinson destroyed them with 4-11. England then made 208 and Pakistan, chasing 389, fought briefly through Saud Shakeel’s magnificent 97, but still folded for 194. The defeat was by 194 runs.
At that point the series was over — and that is precisely when Pakistan cricket’s administrators appeared to lose their heads.
Seven players were sent home. Head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and bowling coach Umar Gul were removed. Mike Hesson, the white-ball coach, was brought in for a Test match, while a group of replacements, including several uncapped players, were hurriedly introduced. The timing was breathtakingly poor. The people who had selected the original squad were effectively admitting, after two matches, that their own selection process had failed. Yet instead of questioning that process, they punished the products of it.
This is the great Pakistani cricket paradox: when the system fails, the system survives.
Players are changed. Coaches are changed. Captains are changed. Selectors are changed. Portfolios are redistributed. Press conferences are held. Strong words are issued. And then, eventually, the same failures return.
The numbers make the indictment difficult to escape. Pakistan went into the third England Test having lost 15 of their previous 20 Tests, while the broader material supplied records 16 defeats in 21 after Edgbaston. They had also endured a succession of coaching and captaincy changes. The World Test Championship table became an especially humiliating mirror: Pakistan were again at the bottom.
And yet the response was not a long-term red-ball programme. It was another purge.
The third Test demonstrated why that approach is so dangerous. Pakistan made only 133 in the first innings, collapsing to 48 for five and then 84 for seven. England replied with 453. Only Razaullah’s extraordinary 81 and Mohammad Abbas’s 42 rescued Pakistan from complete humiliation in the second innings as they reached 449. The 316-run ninth-wicket partnership? No — the actual ninth-wicket stand was 121, and that distinction matters because even the dramatic rescue tells its own story: Pakistan’s recognised batting had already failed before the tailenders produced the entertainment. England then chased 130 with ease, winning by eight wickets and completing a 3-0 whitewash.
Razaullah’s innings was exhilarating. But it should not become another convenient excuse. A team cannot build a Test strategy around a No. 9 producing nine sixes after the top order has collapsed.
The England series also exposed the opening problem brutally. Three different opening combinations were tried, yet Pakistan repeatedly lost early wickets. The batting was not simply short of runs; it lacked a repeatable method for surviving difficult spells. There was too much uncertainty over technique, temperament and shot selection.
And then there is the question of accountability.
Was it the players’ fault? Yes, partly. International cricketers must accept responsibility. Some of the shots were indefensible. Some performances were timid. Some players did not demonstrate the temperament expected at Test level.
But the blame cannot stop there.
If the selectors selected them, the coaches coached them, the high-performance structure developed them, and the board appointed the people responsible for all of it, then responsibility travels upwards. The repeated habit of sacrificing players after systemic failures is not accountability. It is ‘SCAPEGOATING’.
The disciplinary controversy made the situation even uglier. An inquiry was launched amid reports concerning discipline and conduct, while speculation also surrounded the handling of players’ phones and communications. The PCB itself stressed that the allegations were not established and that due process would be followed. That distinction must be respected. Yet the mere fact that such controversy engulfed the team during a disastrous Test tour demonstrated how badly the cricket operation had lost its focus. It’s a clear sign of system failure.
Aaqib Javed’s public questioning of Imam-ul-Haq’s injury further inflamed matters. If an injury is suspected of being genuine or otherwise, investigate it professionally and privately. National cricket cannot be run through public insinuation.
Nor can it be run through perpetual administrative musical chairs.
Pakistan has had multiple captains, coaches, selectors and senior officials in rapid succession. The material supplied records five PCB chairmen in five years and three Test captains and six Test head coaches over three years. That is not a development pathway; it is institutional instability.
The modern game has moved on. Leading cricket boards use data, sports science, biomechanics, specialist coaching, workload management, analytics and long-term talent identification. Pakistan still too often relies on personalities, relationships, reputation and short-term reactions. The supplied analysis is right to identify this as a structural problem rather than merely a technical one.
Mohsin Naqvi therefore has a choice, and it is a much bigger choice than deciding which player to drop.
He must stop rewarding activity and start demanding outcomes.
Every senior position should have measurable objectives. Selectors should be judged on the quality and continuity of their selections. Coaches should be judged over meaningful periods, not five matches. High-performance officials should have defined responsibilities and performance indicators. No individual should be allowed to move from one powerful cricketing position to another simply because failure has occurred in the previous one.
Most importantly, Pakistan needs a proper red-ball strategy.
The domestic first-class structure must become the foundation, not a waiting room. Players need sustained four-day cricket before being thrown into England, Australia or South Africa. A specialist batting programme should identify why Pakistan’s second innings collapses so frequently. Openers need technical preparation against the moving ball. Fast bowlers need workload planning. Spinners need overseas development. Fielding, catching and running between wickets must be treated as professional disciplines.
Selection must also stop being a referendum on reputations.
Babar Azam, Shan Masood, Mohammad Rizwan, Saud Shakeel and every other senior player should be selected on current red-ball value, not nostalgia. Equally, youngsters must not be thrown into Test cricket simply because the administration needs a headline after a defeat.
The West Indies offered warning. England delivered humiliation. The worst response would be another reshuffle.
Pakistan cricket does not need more noise. It needs architecture.
The country still has talent. It still has an extraordinary cricket culture and a fan base that has tolerated more disappointment than almost any sporting public should be expected to endure. The problem is that talent without development, passion without planning and money without professional governance eventually produce exactly what England exposed: a side that can occasionally produce brilliance but cannot sustain competence.
The 3-0 defeat is therefore not merely a series result. It is an audit.
And the audit has failed the players, the coaches, the selectors and, above all, the system, run by Mohsin Naqvi, that keeps appointing, removing and reappointing the same categories of people while expecting different results.
Pakistan cricket does not need another sacrifice.
It needs accountability at the top, stability underneath, merit throughout and patience long enough for genuine reform to take root.
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