Explosive report exposes reasons behind Pakistan cricket's continuous downfall

Pakistan cricket team is probably going through its toughest times in several years. The team is suffering defeats on a consistent basis irrespective of the format. Not only in away games, the team is losing matches in home conditions as well.

From Babar Azam to Shaheen Afridi, the form of the players is continuously going down. Recently, the team suffered a shocking series defeat to Bangladesh in Tests. The Men in Green had never lost even a single Test to Bangladesh before this series but suffered a clean sweep to them in home conditions.

The trend continued in the first Test against England as well. The Men in Green lost to the visiting English team by an innings and 47 runs despite putting 556 runs on the board in the first innings. The fact that they conceded over 800 runs in an innings to England, shows the confidence of the bowlers.

Also read: Not Joe Root! James Anderson tips Harry Brook to become England’s greatest-ever batsman

Why is Pakistan cricket failing consistently?

According to Cricket Pakistan, the situation of the national team is not great. The players are not playing together as a team and are prioritizing individual gains over the team's cause. The players are more concerned about their own places in the team.

"The players are more focused on securing their own positions rather than thinking about the team's performance," a source was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.

The continuous defeats of the team are not helping the cause as well. Under captain Shan Masood, the team have played six matches so far and lost all of them. It included three matches in Australia and three at home.

Babar Azam's body language concerning

The source also reveals that Babar Azam's attitude on the field is concerning. Babar is going through a tough phase in batting. He is yet to score a fifty since the last 18 innings. He has scored runs at an average of just 20 in these 18 innings.

As a result, his body language is not up to the mark because of his low confidence. In the recent Test against England, he registered scores of 30 and 5 across the two innings of the Test match.

Babar even resigned from the white-ball captaincy recently after being under huge pressure in the last few months. Under his leadership, Pakistan failed to make it to the semi-finals of the ODI World Cup 2023 and the T20 World Cup 2024.

Pakistan cricket team's fitness levels

The PCB's player development programme is also under the scanner as questions have been raised regarding its proficiency. The PCB has admitted that there is a shortage of new talent in the country which is leading to these problems. As a result, the board is forced to back the players even if they are failing regularly.

The fitness of Pakistan players is also a big concern. It is believed that the fitness levels of the players have gone down dramatically, leading to injuries and a dip in performances.

There is a big example supporting this statement. Saud Shakeel, Pakistan's vice-captain could hardly pass a fitness test and badly failed. The players are required to complete five laps of the ground in less than eight minutes.

The benchmark for a run of 2 kms and the benchmark has been set at 30. However, the report claimed that many players in the squad failed to reach that score.