The New Zealand Squadron of Pakistan is a roller coaster: Captain of the hand, shock omissions and classical selection chaos.
Pakistan’s Cricket never ceases to surprise, or rather, surprise his fans. The last squad announcement for the next New Zealand tour is no exception.
In the true Pakistani style, it is full of eyebrow increase omissions, a new captain of nowhere and a general atmosphere of “Here we go again!”
You are not wrong if you feel that you have seen this drama before. Take some popcorn while immersing ourselves in the selection circus, full of inconsistencies, leadership and planning musical chairs that seems to have gone on vacation.
Capitancy Carousel: Musical chairs at its maximum expression
It is difficult to follow up who is in charge of the Pakistan Cricket team: the captaincy changes so often that a carousel could dizzy.
A month, a star like Babar Azam is to the helm; The next, it is being done next to the side.
In fact, Babar resigned as the captain of the White Ball of Pakistan, not once, but twice in the 11 months, citing the workload and the form. And just when you thought I could recover the throne, the PCB gives the reins to someone new.
The last turn? Pakistan has “shuffled the deck once again”, dropping his captain T20 Muhammad Rizwan for the T20is of New Zealand, and delivering the captaincy to the deputy of Rizwan, Salman Agha.
Yes, a relatively cool face now leads the team. It is like an episode of Game of Thrones, but with Cricket caps instead of crowns. With the Captaincy changing your hands so often, one wonders if the team bus has a “service captain” signal that turns before each match.
SHENANIGANS SELECTION: Consistency carries a vacation
If the chaos of the captaincy was not enough, the selection decisions for the New Zealand Tour squads have added an additional layer of absurd. In a movement that can only be described as bold (or perhaps only disconcerting), the Pakistan selectors dropped two of their best batters, Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, of the T20i team.
These are not any player; One is your former world -class captain and batter, the other was literally the current T20I captain until five minutes ago. Leaving them both at once is like a chef that throws its main ingredients and tries to cook a gourmet meal with leftovers.
To do the most spicy things, star pacemakers Shaheen Shah Afridi have been out of the hate team for the tour. Who needs your ACE rapid bowling player in difficult conditions of New Zealand, right? Instead, we have a mixture of promising young people and surprise selections.
The new pattern T20, Salman Agha, was a surprise option, a player who, until recently, was not even in the T20I configuration, he was now entrusted to lead the team.
Together with him, the team presents a 22 -year -old novice goalkeeper (Hasan Nawaz) who has played only 21 T20 games, and a great 27 -year -old batter (Abdul Samad) who has not yet played a single PSL game.
It seems that the selection committee made a wild adventure, selecting names of a hat or perhaps displacing random statistics on Cricinfo at 2 am fans are scratching their heads before these turns in U. A series, they tell us that the experience is key; The next, it is about youth; Then, suddenly, the experience is back in Vogue, it is an endless cycle of mixed signals.
This Pick-And-Drop habit does not make anyone any favor. The insecure players of their place play with nerve minds, and those who wait on the wings never know when a random call could arrive (or a random ax could fall).
Lack of vision: Planning? What planning?
At this time, it is clear that underlying Pakistan selection mischief is a deeper problem: a general lack of long -term planning and clear vision. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) often seems to be operating from week to week, throwing fires instead of building a sustainable structure.
A condemnatory opinion article recently described the PCB as an institution that has “long abandoned meritocracy in favor of political appointments, nepotism and a culture of impunity”, where decisions are based more on personal sponsorship than the sense of Crickt. Hard words, but evidence is not difficult to find. The best ranges of the Board have been a rotating door, with each incoming regime that undoes the work of the last regime.
It is a little surprise, then, that there is no constant Cricket vision: how does the future plan when the people in charge may not last the season? Frequent administrative shakes have directly affected Cricket on the ground. PCB presidents come and go, bringing their own set of loyal and ideas, just to be replaced before these ideas can bear fruit. A president prefers a youth policy; The following brings older adults; A third wants all power to the coach; A room gives it to the captain: it is an endless confusion.
Long -term planning in Pakistan’s Cricket often feels like a late occurrence. Good teams in the World Cricket identify a central group, give them defined roles and stay with them through ups and downs. In the case of Pakistan, the selection strategy is more reactive, almost like a impulse purchase in a store.
The 2025 Champions Trophy debacle was an example of the textbook of this Sapatgun approach. Pakistan crashed in the first round, a “disaster that hopes to happen” given the lack of preparation and direction.
Instead of learning from the warning signs, the answer was predictably chaotic: to fire the captain, blame some players and make wholesale changes without a clear plan, as if hitting the restart button solved magically deep problems.
Hug chaos or fix it?
All this paints an image of a Cricket board and a team trapped in a chaos loop. Surely it is attractive, like a reality show for Cricket fans, but it is also exasperating. Inconsistency is perhaps the only thing consistent about the Cricket of Pakistan in recent times.
The tragedy (or comedy, depending on his opinion) is that Pakistan has an immense talent at his disposal. Players have abundance skill and style; What they need desperately is stability and a sense of direction.
Instead of treating the team as a laboratory for endless experiments, the powers that are considered to adhere to a strategy for more than a few games. Continuity does not guarantee success, but the cut and constant change almost certainly guarantees failure.
For now, when Pakistan goes to New Zealand, fans can only expect some of these bets to be worth it. Who knows: in the crazy world of Pakistan Cricket, one side of the harvest led by a rookie captain could surprise us all. It has happened before! But even if there is a victory in the miraculous series, it should not apologize at random decision. Until it is in an adequate plan, each success will feel accidental and each failure will feel inevitable.
At the end of the day, the followers of the Pakistan Cricket have two options: embrace chaos and enjoy the unpredictable trip, or better demand with a sarcastic smile and a raised eyebrow. Maybe it is possible to do both.
After all, surviving as Pakistan’s Cricket fan requires a sense of humor. So here it is in the next episode of this endless saga: that it is entertaining, if nothing else, and the fingers crossed that someone, somewhere on the PCB, is taking notes on how not to execute a Cricket team. Until then, enjoy the controversy, friends, because the Crick is certainly not boring!
