State of affair in Pakistan cricket is really sad: Miandad

Karachi, Jan 23 (PTI) Batting great Javed Miandad has lamented the way cricket is being run in the country, saying frequent appointments and changes in the Pakistan team has shaken the confidence of the players.

“I have not seen cricket governance anywhere in the world like we see in Pakistan and these state of affairs are really sad,” Miandad told media during a ceremony held here to launch the Sindh Premier League.

The former Pakistan skipper, who appeared in 124 Tests, said the governance of cricket in recent times had a bad effect on the team and players as well.

“I don’t think anywhere such frequent appointments and changes in cricket are made and it only means that we don’t have continuity in our cricket structure and more importantly the players don’t gain confidence,” he said.

There has been a string of appointments in Pakistan cricket following the ODI World Cup with Shaheen Shah Afridi and Shan Masood named as T20I and Test captains respectively after Babar Azam stepped down from all formats.

Mohammad Hafeez too was appointed as director of cricket after the World Cup in India.

Miandad said Pakistan was slowly falling behind other teams because of the way sport was being run in the country by the cricket board.

“Since last year we have had a really bad time in terms of our team’s performances and people who have no knowledge of cricket sit and take decisions which affect the entire structure in the country,” he complained.

Pakistan team has recently lost the three-Test series against Australia 0-3, before going down 1-4 in the five-match T20 series against New Zealand.