Indian cricket team star batter Virat Kohli© AFP

File image of Virat Kohli.© BCCI/Sportzpics

Coaches have changed, captains have changed, players have changed, selectors have changed, even board chairmen have changed but Pakistan cricket’s problems remain the same. A fresh change in the Pakistan Cricket Board’s selection committee was unrolled after the team lost the opening Test against England. Ahead of the second Test, the team management even decided to bench the likes of Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah. However, England great Nasser Hussan doesn’t feel these players to be blamed for Pakistan team’s current crisis.

“The issue is not Babar Azam, Shaheen Afridi, or Naseem Shah,” Hussain said on Sky Cricket. “The issue is behind the scenes in the way Pakistan cricket runs.”

Hussain, in a chat with Michael Atherton, further highlighted how Pakistan have used 26 different selectors for the senior men’s national team. The selection committee isn’t the only body that has undergone significant changes the last few years.

For Hussain, no sport or business can be run effectively if it undergoes so many changes on a regular basis. The Pakistan team, hence, only have themselves to blame for the mess they are in.

“In the paper, I saw there were 26 different selectors; in another, it said 27. Nobody can keep count. How many have England had? Two or three, maybe. But if you keep changing selectors, coaches, captains-constantly shuffling leadership-it’s impossible to plan ahead. No successful business or sports team works that way. When you operate with short-term thinking, you show up unprepared, and by the time you lose the first Test, you’re already scrambling for solutions,” he further added

“Their cricket and some of it, you give them a bit of leeway because of the way the finances of the world game have gone with the big three, and they’re picking up the scraps like other nations are. So I really feel for Pakistan cricket and we mustn’t be too harsh on them, but at times, they shoot themselves in the foot,” Hussain remarked. 

Even Pakistan cricket great Wasim Akram reacted to the comments made by Hussain, saying he and Atherton are onto something.

I think finally boys are on too something here https://t.co/AbKlRYXnL4

— Wasim Akram (@wasimakramlive) October 14, 2024

Pakistan would hope to produce a change in their fortunes as they take on England in the second Test without Babar, Shaheen and Naseem.

File image of Stuart Broad and Yuvraj Singh.© X (Twitter)

Former captain Nasser Hussain said England’s quickfire victory over the West Indies in the first Test at the Lord’s summed up the problems the longest format of the game finds itself at. England beat West Indies by an innings and 114 runs in the first hour of day three, to now take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. While England had some red-ball preparation in the form of County Championship games, West Indies played just one three-day red-ball game against First Class Counties XI in preparation.

Moreover, the majority of the members in the West Indies squad haven’t played red-ball cricket since the wonderful eight-run win over Australia at Brisbane in January. “Those two days summed up for me where we are with Test cricket. You talk about all the batting they could have but they’re off in a white-ball sunset, you’ve got bowlers who haven’t bowled, you’ve got undercooked cricketers, and then you lose the toss and have the worst of conditions, and everyone goes ‘Test cricket is dying’.”

“But if you prepare for a Test match like that, you’ll get exactly what England get when they go away. It frustrates me because you’ve got to give Test matches the preparation that they deserve, which is a very easy thing to say but a very difficult thing to do in modern times,” said Hussain on the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast.

There is curiosity around whether the second Test between England and the West Indies at Trent Bridge will prove to be more competitive. “The other story is ‘the West Indies are in terminal decline’ — England haven’t won in the Caribbean for two decades and (the West Indies) hold the Richard-Botham Trophy.”

“England travel to India or Australia and don’t particularly do well, so it shouldn’t just be a West Indies story. All it does is add to the fact that Test-match cricket is in a difficult place, and it is sort of self-perpetuating.”

“If you don’t look after it, then sides turn up and put in a performance like that, and everyone goes, ‘Told you, Test-match cricket is dying’. Listening to you speaking to Jimmy Anderson after 188 Test matches on the podium, I would like to think we would try to look after Test-match cricket.”

Michael Atherton, the former England skipper, elaborated on how Anderson spoke passionately about his love for Test cricket following his retirement from international cricket at Lord’s and will now take up the role of fast-bowling mentor in the red-ball team.

“Anderson said, ‘Test cricket has literally made me the person I am’. So, all the lessons he’s drawn from Test cricket — the ups, the downs, the highs, the lows, the coming back for that third spell at six o’clock in the evening and having to dig deep within yourself.”

“All of the things which have made him the mature person he is, Test cricket has helped him along the way. I wanted to ask him about it because it’s at a fragile time, he’s going to move onto a mentoring role and you’d hope, because there are young players coming through now who will have career choices to make.”

“You’d like to feel Jimmy would say to them ‘sometimes the easiest choices are not always the most rewarding or most fulfilling’…although everybody needs to pay the bills, one understands that.”

Jasprit Bumrah was the only Indian who made the cut in a 2024 T20 World Cup ‘Team of the Tournament’ made by England greats Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain. The team, which has been made on the premise of the group stage of the T20 World Cup, saw the likes of Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant and Arshdeep Singh be left out, despite stellar performances. The English duo – who are now reputed commentators – analysed and explained their choices on Sky Sports Cricket.

Virat Kohli – the all-time highest run-getter in T20 World Cup history – will be hoping to make the Team of the Tournament at a later stage, having scored just five runs so far.

“We had Bumrah, obviously. He had to be in,” quipped Nasser Hussain. Bumrah has picked up five wickets in India’s first three games, including two Player of the Match awards, against Ireland and arch-rivals Pakistan.

Atherton and Hussain showed a lot of love for some of the unsung heroes of the tournament. Afghanistan’s Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Scotland’s Brandon McMullen and USA’s Aaron Jones all made their XI.

After winning IPL 2024, Gurbaz has been exceptional, scoring 167 runs in four innings at a striker rate of more than 150. McMullen has scored at an even faster rate, boasting a strike rate of 170.

Australia’s Marcus Stoinis was the only all-rounder picked by Atherton and Hussain. Stoinis is the third top run-scorer of the 2024 T20 World Cup so far, at a phenomenal strike rate of 190. Incredibly, he has also picked six wickets in four games, with an economy of just 5.77.

The Super 8 stage of the T20 World Cup gets underway on Wednesday, June 19, as hosts USA face South Africa in Group II.

Atherton and Hussain’s ‘Team of the Tournament So Far’:

Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Travis Head, Brandon McMullen, Aaron Jones, Marcus Stoinis, David Miller, Alzarri Joseph, Akeal Hosein, Adam Zampa, Jasprit Bumrah, Fazalhaq Farooqi.

India’s remarkable reservoir of talent and formidable depth within their squad makes them strong contenders to win the upcoming T20 World Cup, feels former England skipper Eoin Morgan. India have gone with almost the same squad as they had in the last edition of the T20 World Cup while adding the likes of young Yashasvi Jaiswal, Yuzvendra Chahal and Sanju Samson. “The strongest side even with injuries throughout the tournament is India. Their strength and depth is absolutely incredible,” Morgan said on Sky Sports.

“And it’s almost probably, we’re talking about who the players that were missed out in their squad of 15 because of the quality that they possess.

“They are favourites for me, the quality they have on paper, if they produce it I think they can beat anybody quite well in the tournament,” he added.

India were spoilt for choice as they were forced to leave the likes of Shubman Gill and KL Rahul.

“The only decision I would have had differently and if I was selecting the squad, I would have Shubman Gill over Yashasvi Jaiswal. I have played alongside him, I know how he thinks. I know how he works.

“I feel he’s a future leader within that side and I think in big moments, in World Cups the more leaders the better. Even if he’s sitting on the sideline, you still need inspiration from here and there, a sense of positivity.” India head into almost every tournament as favourites but they haven’t won an ICC title in over a decade. The last trophy the ‘Men in Blue’ lifted was the Champions Trophy in 2013.

In the last edition of the T20 World Cup they were hammered by 10 wickets by eventual winners England in the semifinals in Adelaide.

“I think they can (win), because they have go to a stage now where Adelaide would hurt, recently losing the (ODI) World Cup at home to Australia in front of 1,25,000 Indian fans.

“The spinner will come into the game, the level of batsmanship will come into the game if the wickets slow down like we think. But also that excellence in power hitting is the point of difference for me. Shivam Dube has to play,I think he’ll set this World Cup alight.

Irony that only time India won T20 WC was pre-IPL: Atherton

Many argue that India’s cricket in T20 format has improved by leaps and bounds since the advent of the IPL.

But former England captain Michael Atherton pointed out that it ironical that the only time India won the T20 World Cup was before the IPL came into being.

“It’s also an irony, because everyone talks about the IPL and how it has improved India’s T20 cricket. The irony is that the only time they have won is pre IPL,” Atherton said.

India were the first T20 World Cup winners in 2007. Under the captaincy of the talismanic Mahendra Singh Dhoni, they had beaten arch-rivals Pakistan.