Rao Dilshad Hussain

Almost all the cricket boards throughout the world including the Pakistan have enough finances in its kitty to streamline the games set up. With the emergence of ODIs and T20 format the game has become a money-making industry and to further their earnings the boards hold cricket galas. But unfortunately for over the last couple of years the uncertain situation in the country has deprived Pakistan of international cricket. Still then the national team was given home away from home at neutral venues to host international teams and the board earned enough money even then. But the utilisation of the money is quite different and overwhelming in view of the fact that all boards opt for promotion of the game in different ways. They introduce latest technology in cricket, do experiments, fix the flaws in the cricketers’ skills and make them ready for the national requirement. These practices go on and on throughout the year but not in Pakistan.

Unfortunately, the PCB despite having reasonable finances has different priorities. The money earned through cricket is used for the travel of board officials across the globe, entertaining blue-eyed friends and families tours, projecting fake development plans like construction of wickets that in ground reality don’t exist but are documented in the files, hiring the services of PR company that charges nearly a million rupees per month, which pose a real challenge for any administrator to tackle.

Take the case of the National Cricket Academy (NCA) when it was constructed, it’s basic objective was to facilitate the emerging and talented players. Initially its budget was Rs 900 million for such a fabulous project that could have taken Pakistan cricket to new heights. But it seems the finances here too are misused and recently millions of rupees were spent to construct cemented pitches outdoor for the use of bowling machines.

The NCA’s administration wanted to construct nearly a dozen pitches in the beginning but lack of space reserved the construction to approximately four pitches. In the end a huge amount of money was wasted on the project and to the dissatisfaction of the administration the project was abandoned. No notice was taken on the waste of money with a reason being that blue-eyed person of the PCB chairman was heading the NCA. Even no notice was taken by anyone about Rs 2 million mineral water drinking at the academy.

Another big waste of money is the import of Rs 25 millions bio-mechanic lab from Australia without any know-how. It is in fact a software being called a machine and training through this technology enhance the skills of the players and removes their flaws.

When the NCA did not get anyone who could run the software, a senior official from the academy was sent to Australia for learning the technicalities and bio-mechanic language who enjoyed his trip a lot without achieving the objective and now no one is there to operate it though it identifies and removes mistakes in batting, bowling and fielding techniques.

Former test player and NCA director Mudassar Nazar was the pioneer of the project but after his resignation set aside the bio-mechanics lab the NCA has failed to yield required results.

Former Pakistan captain Aamir Sohail after taking over as director NCA recommended an expert software operator Bashir Tahir to make the lab operational but the administration was not in a mood to keep him in the service and the project was left in doldrums after Sohail’s resignation.

Sohail even now favours the use of bio-mechanics lab and strongly recommends a proper set up. He said: “Latest technologies have dominated the human lives. I think Pakistan players should learn through this technology to improve their skills. The cricket world is facilitating its emerging players but here in Pakistan nobody is bothered about the use of technology.” 

“The NCA would have done a lot of work on players’ batting and bowling techniques, their physical fitness and removing injuries. I think bio-mechanic lab project was a gigantic contribution but despite spending huge money we could not take benefits from it as compared to other boards,” said Sohail.

Looking at another aspect is the coaching book being use at the academy carries a lot of flaws. And the thing to identify in the book is the spin-bowling coaching criteria with just two pages on the topic when we have a lot of legendary spinners including Abdul Qadir, Iqbal Qasim, Mushtaq Ahmed, Saqlain Mushtaq etc. None of them have ever been invited to coach the spin lot, which is getting extinct now.

Even the careers of some emerging spinners were destroyed or overlooked. Take the case of leg-spinner Mansoor Amjad, one of the highest wicket-takers of the domestic cricket has almost left the game. Then Azher Ali who has become a test player, started cricket as leg-spinner and after passing through the NCA he turned towards batting. Another victim of ignorance is Usman Qadir. When he joined the academy, the coaches gave some tips and changed his natural bowling action which was horned by his father Abdul Qadir. Now the country is reeling in the spin department with having no quality spinner.

The coaching education programme was derived from the England’s coaching manuals, which lacks quality spinners when Pakistan can still produce more. Keeping in view all this, the PCB needs to play constructive role for the game and hire professionals rather than obliging friends at key posts. [This story is also syndicated at Light Within]