The rot that has set in Pakistani cricket presents a peculiar problem because authorities can toggle the management of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), give the top slots to whoever they think is the best talent on the market, even stand its structure on its head if they like, but unless the playing eleven improves its performance and stats winning matches everything would count as bad investment. It’s understandable why the government thought installing Ehsan Mani as PCB chairman and Wasim Khan as Managing Director (MD) of the Board might do the job. Mani is, after all, a former president of the International Cricket Council (ICC) with about as spotless a record as someone with such a resume can claim. And Mani is a former chief executive of the Leicestershire County Cricket Club and has played on the county circuit. No team would be better expected to rebuild the domestic structure on international lines, like the English and Australian domestic leagues, which the prime minister has always been fond of. But that in itself raises a number of very important questions. Because in trying to solve Pakistan’s problems we have engaged people with no understanding of them, at very high salaries, and now it is becoming clear that their experience of other environments is not what is needed to put our house in order. One of the effects of the so-called reforms this new team introduced was dismantling of the domestic departmental structure, which has cut down the number of players participating in club and minor-league levels cricket by thousands. And that, in a nutshell, is why no new talent is being identified or nurtured. PCB would do well to take a leaf out of India’s board’s book in this instance, especially since its policies have raised the profile of the Indian playing team in the time that Pakistan’s profile has deteriorated from one of the best in the world to one of the least impressive. They got their star players from the last few decades to coach players at the under-14 and under-16 levels. And the boys that they trained won a number of junior world cups before the finest from them were chosen to form what is now their national team. All this time our all-time greats – and we have far more to boast than India – have been ignored by successive administrations of PCB in favour of more expensive foreign coaches and managers. Nobody understands all this better than Prime Minister Imran Khan, of course, and since the board’s management has mishandled everything from domestic infrastructure to appointment of appropriate coaches and managers and tested the patience of this cricket-loving nation, it is time that he made some long-overdue changes. It would have been better if PCB’s senior management saved everybody the trouble and resigned on its own, especially in light of news reports of internal disagreements and fights, but since they haven’t, the prime minister should put his foot down and bring new faces to the board; preferably those that understand Pakistan’s environment and its problems. *