Champions Trophy- Just a Bad Dream.

Written By: Bareera Rufi

So the much awaited Champions Trophy has ended for Pakistan. It was just a 9-day journey for one of teams which was rated as favorite to win the tournament. Team Pakistan couldn't even win a single game and remained last in both the groups combined with 0 point.

It'll be quite hard to blame our bowlers but yes blaming the batsmen it utterly right. Our team even with 7 batsmen failed to cross 200. Except for Misbah and Jamshed none of the other batsmen even made 50 odd runs. They averaged Kamran 7.66, Malik 8.33, Hafeez 12.66, Asad 20.50, Nasir 31.33, Misbah 86.50, in 3 innings while Farhat 2.00. Amin 43.0 and Asad 20.6 in 2 innings. Their performance has failed to justify the tradition of Cricket in Pakistan.

'If you shake a tree in Pakistan, fast bowlers fall like leaves' - Ravi shahstri. It was just because of our bowlers we got to see some fight back. I dream of a day when someone say this for our batsmen.

The problem is definitely with our batsmen but the bigger problem is with our Cricket . Board and the people who are associated with it. Firstly it goes for our Chairman. He sent a big 'army' of coaches, management, staff with our team who are receiving huge amount of money from our Cricket board whereas on one side when they are being paid immensely our cricketers haven't been paid for last 6 months.

Secondly, our great PCB has not scheduled any tour for Pakistan A team. It makes a big difference from here. Our players perform extremely well in domestic but when they are introduced at international level they fail badly and are never seen again. By organizing A teams tour our batsmen will get more familiar to those conditions and pitches and they can perform better at int level. The other issue is of the kookaburra ball which has got better seam and thankfully the only good thing PCB has done was to use it in domestic cricket.

Other imp factor was our great 'Qualified Coach Mr. Whatmore'. It seemed like the team hadn't done any homework and hadn't made special plans for 'dangerous' players. It was just the players personal effort whereas the work of coach was seen nowhere. If PCB wants to get these qualified coaches so they can better give them jobs in academies to work with domestic players but jot at int level of course these qualified coaches cant tell an int player 'how to play' and secondly the coach should be local as the difference in languages creates a big vacuum.

On the positive side there is s much to nurture and celebrate about the positives like the fielding has improved a lot, the excitement because of our bowlers. At the end of the day the better team won so yeah. New talent performing and i guess it's been a long time all the seniors who didn't perform should say goodbye and selectors should make up a completely new team for the 2015 WC with a young captain.

-Team Pakistan Love Forever-