ICC Team of the Decade and Roasted Pakistan Commentariat

Yesterday ICC declared much awaited T20I ODI, and test teams of the decade bringing joy to many nations and players but it also dropped the bombshell on Pakistan. A pall of gloom descended on Pakistan whose supreme leader is a world cup winning cricketer. The anguished commentariat in Pakistan vilified these awards and casted aspersions on the method of team selection.

Without an iota of doubt these are the most coveted lists which every international cricketer wants to be part off, and all major cricket playing nations except Pakistan have managed to get one or more cricketers on the list.

Yesterday entire Pakistani media was up in arms against the ICC some even going to the extent and naming it Indian cricket council instead of international cricket council. Even the top notch cricketers from the country like Shohaib Akhtar and Inzamamul Haq blamed ICC and said that ICC was not selecting IPL team. Even Women’s ODI team of the decade has no Pakistani cricketer in its rank. Speaking on his YouTube channel, Akhtar launched a scathing attack on parent body of cricket, terming their team of the decade an IPL XI instead of being a world cricket team.

ICC included four Indian players Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni, and Jasprit Bumrah in its T20I team of the decade. In ODI team of the decade three Indian players Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni could make the cut. ICC test team of the decade lead by none other than King Kohli also included Ravchandran Ashwin the great Indian mystery spinner.

Our heart swells with pride to find King Kohli in all three lists and it comes as no surprise considering the number of runs he has scored over the past decade. Virat Kohli’s record speaks for itself. He has scored 20,696 runs including 66 tons across all formats in the past decade.

 Dhoni has also been rightly named as the skipper of the ICC’s T20I Team of the Decade which is testament to what he has achieved over the years in ODI and T20 cricket.

Going thru the commentariat coming out from Pakistan there is some merit in their argument, if we look at Shaid Afridi’s record he could have been included in the T20 team instead of Pollard as his record is much better. Also stats of Umar Gul and Baba Azam present a convincing argument. Most importantly record in tests of Younis Khan is also a good but ICC decided to condone their performances.

I feel role of respective cricket boards is of paramount importance here and it is deplorable that PCB could not get even a single Pakistani Player in any of the ODI teams.  ICC twitter handle is replete with trollers from Pakistan who have casted aspersions on the way team selection has done.  If we look at the overall selection by ICC it was not as if team was dominated by Indians as claimed by many Pakistanis.

The Awards Nominations Committee comprised of  prominent cricket journalists and broadcasters from across the globe and the ICC General Manager – Cricket determined a shortlist of nominees for each category. The members of the Awards Nominations Committee were:

• Geoff Allardice, ICC General Manager – Cricket
• Benedict Bermange, Statistician
• Ian Bishop, Broadcaster
• Tim Cutler, Journalist
• Natalie Germanos, Broadcaster
• Peter Lalor, Journalist
• Alison Mitchell, Broadcaster
• Sharda Ugra, Journalist
•  

The results of the Voting Academy’s selections amounted to a 90% share of the vote, with the fans’ vote counting for 10%.

ICC Teams of the decade was determined exclusively by the Voting Academy. Voting Academy comprised a wider selection of global cricket journalists and broadcasters, with cricket fans also contributing to the vote via the ICC’s digital channels.

Some of the plausible reasons which one can think off for not even a single Pakistani player in the list:

• India wields considerable clout within ICC because of its financial muscle. Over 80% of ICC’s revenues come from Indian market which gives India the bragging rights and they have a lot of say in ICC but as a matter of fact if you look at the test team only two Indian players have been able to find a place in the list dominated by four players from England. Please note that team here was selected exclusively by the voting academy and India had very little role to play in that.

• If we look at the working of PCB, it has not been able to foster good working relationship with ICC even though it has good number of fans and game is followed fanatically in Pakistan but Pakistan has repeatedly failed to put any members in top ICC committees. Also very little cricket has been played in Pakistan post attack on Sri Lankan players in Lahore.

• Not winning any ICC Trophy: Pakistan has not won any major ICC even in the past decade and also most of the cricket matches which were held were not in Pakistan but UAE which was made home ground for Pakistan.

• Match Fixing Allegations: Pakistan cricket is bedeviled with corruption scandals over the years and PCB has done very little to discipline its players, considering the harsher punishments meted out to their players by Australian cricket board and South African cricket boards their efforts don’t seem to have done enough.

• Impact on the Game: Barring Shahid Afridi and to some extent Babar Azam no other player has made any significant impact on the cricketing world, also there has been lot of chopping and changing in Pakistani cricket.

• Brand Pakistan:  Brand Pakistan has taken a beating over past ten years, yes they have produced players like Babar Azam, Umar Gul but stature of Pakistan in the cricketing world has continued to plummet.

These could be some of the reasons which have pushed Pakistan into the dark alleys of cricket but in order to regain its lost glory, the nation needs to do much better than what it has done in the past decade.  A nation obsessed with cricket has repeatedly failed to live up to the high expectations of its cricket loving public.

Connoisseurs like Dr. Numan Niaz and Swaera Pasha who well understand the nuances of the game would do well to introspect their own systems and work on improving them else it will be difficult to restore the lost glory of Pakistani cricket which is “caught behind” in the maze of deep structural issues.

Image Credits : Google Images

Disclaimer : Views expressed are personal and are not meant to defame any country or person.