It must be hard being a Pakistan cricket fan right now.
Those supporters have seen the side suffer 14 defeats in their last 19 Tests after last week’s three-day, innings-and-103-run drubbing by England in the series opener at Headingley.
The tourists were loose and ineffective with the ball, poor with the bat and awful in the field – a damaging cocktail.
Ahead of the second game at Lord’s from Thursday – live on Sky Sports Cricket (10am on air, 11am first ball) – Osman Samiuddin, a senior editor at Cricinfo and Pakistan cricket expert, joined Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain on the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast.
Samiuddin explained where he thinks things have gone wrong for Pakistan as cricket in the country reaches an “alarm bells stage” with fans “fed up” at how the game is being run…
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Highlights from the day three of the first Test between England and Pakistan as Joe Root’s side cruised to an innings victory at Headingley.
Too much change with domestic structure
OSMAN SAYS: “Whichever structure you choose – there has been a great battle in Pakistan over the last 50 years, really, about whether you should have departmental or regional sides – I would pick one and stick with it, say this structure stays for the next 10, 12 years.
“They have changed structure almost every single season since the first first-class season in 1953. There has been no stability.
“We cut from 16 to six teams in 2019-20, then expanded to 16 teams with four first-class tournaments and three white-ball tournaments.
Pakistan have lost 14 of their last 19 Test matches
“When they cut down in 2019, they literally lost half their first-class cricketer pool. There were stories of players taking up driving taxis as, overnight, they didn’t have a career.
“That drastic change every season has impacted the quality of domestic cricket, which is where you get your talent from.
“Domestic tournaments used to be played across 16 first-class grounds. For the last few years, they have been at about four or five.
“How are batters like Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq supposed to work out how to play in different conditions playing at four grounds?”
Issues with administration and management of players
OSMAN SAYS: “A lot of it is self-inflicted.
“Since 2021, we have had four chairmen – Ramiz Raja, Najam Sethi, Zaka Ashraf and now Mohsin Naqvi – with very different views and very different levels of involvement in the game.
“The current chairman is also the interior minister of the country. Pakistan has a lot of interior-minister issues on any given day so he is fairly busy with his day job. You wonder how much time he has for cricket?
“Shaheen Shah Afridi, Babar Azam, Abdullah Shafique, Naseem Shah…
“So many of these players have burst onto the scene and then regressed. There is a feeling that golden talents have not hit the heights we are expecting them to hit and maybe never will.
Captain Babar Azam could return for Pakistan at Lord’s after missing the Leeds Test with a hand injury
“There is only one reason, really, for that regression and that is how the PCB manages their careers.
“They haven’t managed them well enough whether through injury or basic player development stuff. There has been a succession of managements that haven’t brought their best players on.
“There is no reason Shaheen and Naseem should not be leading Pakistan’s pace attack but Naseem has not played a Test since December 2024 and Shaheen has played nine of 27 Tests since coming back from a knee injury.
“Shaheen injured his knee in a Test in Sri Lanka in 2022 fielding. There was a lot of confusion over the rehab and he was maybe rushed back.
Pakistan are missing left-arm seamer Pakistan Shaheen Shah Afridi’s x-factor in this series
“He has been hit by constant changes in the coaching set-up, never knowing who his coach is, who the bowling coach is, for example.
“He has hardly played a first-class game in three years and a fast bowler, you would think, would need to keep bowling to build your body up. Same for Naseem.
“What has become acute over the last five, six years is how wasteful Pakistan is of its talent. There has always been a certain amount of waste – it is not efficient – but that waste has increased more and more rapidly.”
Samiuddin also noted how Naseem and Shaheen – not part of this Test squad – have been unceremoniously dropped at times without explanation, saying that “messes with a player’s career.”
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Sky Sports’ Urooj Mumtaz was disappointed with Pakistan’s performance in Leeds, saying the tourists lacked discipline and skill
Can fans be won back?
It was noticeable in Leeds how sparse the Pakistan support was and Samiuddin says patience with the governance is wearing thin.
He added: “I have heard more from fans anecdotally, not that they are angry at the team or because they are losing, but that they are fed up with how Pakistan cricket is being run. I suspect people will still turn up at Lord’s to watch them.
“But it is dwindling and I think we are at an alarm-bells-ringing danger-point where if it goes on like this then you may think cricket will go the way hockey has gone in Pakistan and the way cricket is going in the West Indies, for example.”
Watch day one of the second Test between England and Pakistan, at Lord’s, live on Sky Sports Cricket and Sky Sports Main Event from 10am Thursday (11am first ball). Stream with NOW.
Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan trudges off during the team’s innings hammering by England at Headingley
England vs Pakistan Test series schedule
All games live on Sky Sports; all 11am starts UK and Ireland
