In the end it was the usual suspects that were caught and fired — head coach Waqar Younis, captain Shahid Afridi and the selectors led by Haroon Rasheed.

The masterminds who have actually propelled the country’s cricket into these dark, dead end tunnels — PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan, chairman executive committee Najam Sethi and chairman cricket committee Shakeel Shaikh — have walked away all the way to happy hour.

It is not too different from March 2003 when Pakistan couldn’t make the Super Six stage of the World Cup. The then PCB chairman Gen Tauqir Zia fired six players — Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Saeed Anwar, Saqlain Mushtaq, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Shoaib Akhtar. The last two were to be recalled within the year (and Saqlain for a Test in 2004); Inzi actually captained Pakistan from 2004 and played another World Cup.

The general had then offered a token resignation that was turned down (probably by pre planning) by then patron President Musharraf.

Waqar had taken over 50 wickets in ODIs in the year 2002, the most that year by any Pakistani and Saeed Anwar’s penultimate game for Pakistan had seen him score a World Cup century against India at Centurion. It was a team selection that had seen Pakistan go with the recalled Azhar Mahmood who had abominable average as ODI batsman and bowler the previous years and with out of depth players like Salim Elahi. As always, it had been the Chairman PCB who had approved the team.

And in the year leading to that he had hired a special trainer for Shoaib Akhtar saying he was an asset and deserved special treatment. The whole team felt upset about the special privilege given to Shoaib. Naturally Shoaib reported to PCB chairman and not coach, captain or team’s trainer.

Wasim Bari, then chief selector was also relieved and promptly blamed the nation for expecting too much from the team and putting pressure on them by giving them a great send off. A mind boggling statement considering it had been the PCB who had arranged a grand televised send-off event at a stadium!

Lastly, the coach Richard Pybus, a virtual unknown who had been brought in earlier in 1999 World Cup to replace Javed Miandad and work alongside Mushtaq Mohammad, had been recalled six months earlier to coach the team in the World Cup; he was promptly fired as well.

Tauqir Zia remained firmly in power until he was blamed for allotting the unscheduled five match ODI series against New Zealand in late 2003 to a private channel and asked to step down; in came Shaharyar Khan to replace him who had been manager of that fateful 2003 World Cup where players had fought openly with each other and there were accusations of girls visiting in hotel rooms. Also, an undisciplined and rude outings by players to special causes sprinkled around the World Cup.

Likewise the 2007 World Cup was a disaster and Pakistan lost to Ireland to go out at the group stage. The price was paid by Inzamam-ul-Haq. Coach Woolmer probably survived the ignominy of being fired by virtue of his tragic death the night after Pakistan’s exit. Though Inzamam had indeed been responsible for lacklustre and selfish batting, it had been the PCB chairman Naseem Ashraf who had sown the seeds with interference in team affairs, even wearing the team jacket for a group photo of the team against all protocols.

But his departure later was due to his benefactor President Musharraf’s fall from power rather than apportioning of any blame.

And in 2011, skipper Afridi (though he had led Pakistan into the semi-finals and lost to India) and coach Waqar may have survived short term but both went out the same year; Afridi after the West Indies tour following the World Cup and Waqar a few months later. Once again the PCB top management survived despite being unable to unify the captain and coach and Ijaz Butt having made a complete mess of the 2010 spot fixing scandal. He first accused the English players of also being involved in match fixing and then had to rush to London to apologise in person.

He had also been at the helm in 2009 when his and his management team’s utter carelessness at supervising security arrangements led to the attack on the Sri Lankan team which was scantily secured. He rebuffed it all at the time by saying it wasn’t his responsibility and was not the least bit remorseful. Appointed by the President due to his links with the then defense minister, he wasn’t touched then or later.

So the story goes, always the players and never the management that are arrogant, overrule and/or influence selections, enforce nepotism, promote cronyism, suppress merit and completely mess up domestic cricket that leads to killing of avenues of developing talent.

Yes, the captain and coach have been at fault most times and Pakistan cricket has paid for it. But in reality the symptoms have been visible since long before the event. Just about every time.

Appointing people at the helm with no experience of playing or managing cricket, running personal agendas, chasing power, even corruption, experimenting with domestic cricket, turning a blind eye to unrest in the team, speculative selection, clandestine deals with players, favoritism and buying favour with media has had disastrous consequences.

Yet, like in all the instances mentioned, it is but near impossible for a PCB chairman to be fired for his incompetency or one firing any member of the management team; after all if the coach, captain and selection committee chairman is at fault this time, the question to be asked is who appointed them? If they are found to be so inept then shouldn’t the man who appointed them be held accountable? And it was Shaharyar Khan who has made it known on a couple of occasions that it was Najam Sethi who appointed Haroon Rasheed as chairman of selectors, who appointed coach Waqar and also appointed Shahid Afridi as captain.

And it was Shahrayar who gave Shahid Afridi till the World Cup to continue captaincy despite Waqar Younis having written a report back in 2011 that, “as a captain he is very immature, has poor discipline, lacks a game plan and is unwilling to listen to others’ opinions or advice”.

Should not Shahrayar and Najam Sethi be called to answer why they appointed him if that was the report by the coach who was also the coach this time? Do they not see previous reports on candidates for each job? Do they not see that if the chairman criticises the domestic structure after just one year of its three year proposed life and then appoints the same person to redo it as the one who created it in the first place, instead of firing him, it is the height of cowardice?

Should he not be held accountable for ridiculing his team in the middle of a world event by saying: “Pakistan ranks seventh in the T20 format. So the country should not pin much hope on the team.” How demotivating can that be when two matches were still to be played?

When will we remove the core of the problem? At present, we are losing the forest for the trees. A fish starts to rot from its head and we are chopping off the fins all the time.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2016