5 March 2016 - It emerged next day that PCB was considering Ahmed Shehzad, Salman Butt, Kamran Akmal and Zulfiqar Babar for selection.
Out of these 4, only Shehzad and Zulfiqar looked somewhat sensible as they both had a decent PSL and it seemed the selectors had finally woken up to the need of a specialist spinner in spin-friendly India. Salman Butt last played a T20 in 2010. YES, 6 years ago. He hasn’t yet played a domestic T20 on return and was being seriously considered for selection.
The head coach Waqar Younis wanted him in the squad and Shahid Afridi, the captain was vehemently against it. Salman Butt has never been regarded as a viable T20 batsman who in 24 T20 internationals, averages 28 with a strike rate of 107. His 3 half-centuries have come against Canada, Bangladesh of 2010, and a 67* against the Kiwis in a chase of 133 which Pakistan still lost. Hardly T20 material.
The stupidity of Salman Butt’s selection would have even outranked the selection of Khurram Manzoor.
Mind also boggles at the reconsideration of Kamran Akmal. Quite how his name keeps returning to the national side on the eve of World Cups is beyond me. Kamran Akmal failed to impress in the PSL, looked out of sorts against both pace and spin, scoring 151 runs in 10 matches and yet here was, a contender for WT20 selection.
7 March 2016 – PCB officially replaced Khurram Manzoor with Ahmed Shehzad. What face have PCB left to save after re-selecting Ahmed Shehzad, roughly a month after they dropped him; someone they didn’t think good enough in the first place to represent Pakistan in these marquee tournaments?
There was still no place for a specialist spinner in the squad. Among all these changes, Hafeez is still part of the team. 31 runs in 4 Asia Cup games, an average performance in PSL, and in a state of constant decline since the last 3 years - Hafeez is still part of the team.
From the captain to the coach to the whole PCB setup, everyone seems to be bemoaning the lack of talent and performance in Pakistan cricket. They are in complete disconnect with the cause and effect of the deepening malaise in Pakistan cricket and are again side-stepping the severe need to diagnose the real issue.
Our selection committees are time and again selecting the wrong people in the squad and their decision making and analytical skills have gone so bad, their decisions no longer warrant a sensible ‘for and against’ argument, and have become a national laughing stock.
What does it say about PCB’s integrity when it has to chop and change the squad at least 3 times (including the dropping and re-selection of the same person) after submitting its final squads to ICC? To add to the problem, the team management is even failing to extract the best out of the selected squad with unbalanced playing XIs and employing the wrong combinations. When you pick players that do not deserve a spot, their performances show lack of confidence and insecurity, which ultimately rubs off on the whole team.
To make matters worse, PCB has set up an inquiry committee to investigate the performance of the team in the Asia Cup, just before the WT20, while the PCB President is busy revealing his private commitments with the captain Shahid Afridi. As a captain who has made many mistakes and really needs all the help he can get, PCB is doing all it can on all fronts to ensure the team leadership, including Afridi, is completely demoralized, and that the team is in the worst possible state before a global tournament.
Once again Pakistan heads into a major tournament unaware of its best XI, its best batsmen, or the best combinations. A sad and fairly predictable state now, that Pakistan cricket tends to find itself in.
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