A LOT of criticism has already been directed towards Pakistan for succumbing to a 0-5 whitewash to Australia in the recent ODI series. However, since I personally believe in thoroughly analysing the reasons for any defeat or victory, therefore I feel that the team management — comprising a bevy of coaches — is primarily responsible for the poor result in the UAE contest.

Head Coach Mickey Arthur should squarely be held responsible for the fiasco since he appears to be woefully lacking in any strategy or plan to motivate the team. With the World Cup looming large and the Australians riding on the crest of a wave after their fabulous ODI series victory against India in India, Arthur should never have agreed to resting the Pakistan top guns for the five-match contest.

Instead, he defended the ridiculous decision and treated the Aussies rather lightly which hugely backfired in the end.

Not far behind the blundering Arthur is batting coach Grant Flower who has not been able to produce any spectacular performance from the batsmen — the flop tour of South Africa and now this whitewash being prime examples — where the batting has appeared in complete disarray.

In all forms of international cricket, the reckless and poor shots to which our batsmen have got out are deplorable and poorly reflect on Flower’s long but fruitless tenure at batting coach.

And the worst of them all has been bowling coach Azhar Mahmood who has failed to work any wonders with the bowlers, though bowling has forever been Pakistan’s strength. It was under Azhar that Pakistan achieved the dubious distinction of allowing England to compile its world record ODI total of 444 for 3 at Nottingham three years ago, until they bettered it against the Aussies last year.

This was a golden opportunity for the selectors to give the best team to skipper Sarfraz Ahmed who could have gained in confidence and stature by leading the side against the Aussies and, in all probability, defeating them.

Australia, mind you, is no Kenya or Zimbabwe, so any experimentation against them was destined to backfire which it did.

Why on earth coach Arthur and chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq are still indulging in experiments in the team so close to the World Cup is honestly beyond me. It seems that Pakistan is still gloating over the 2017 Champions Trophy win in England and have conveniently overlooked the many chinks in its armour.

A quick look at the five matches against the Aussies tell us that our bowlers just could not make early in-roads into the opposition’s batting which led to big totals that our batsmen could not chase successfully.

After having lost the fist three ODIs comprehensively, Pakistan could have won the last two games but the three centurions - Haris Sohail, Mohammad Rizwan and debutant Abid Ali – unfortunately could not finish the games, losing their wickets at crucial junctures and leaving the team high and dry.

They will be well advised to take a leaf out of Javed Miandad or Younis Khan’s book as the two greats often took their team ashore in such times.

Same could be said for ex-Aussie great Steve Waugh or Michael Bevan or Michael Hussey who were great finishers.

It is high time that the PCB takes some tough decisions to put the team on the right track. The first and foremost among them is to get rid of the team’s ‘expensive and under-performing’ coaches and replace them with real professionals.

I will highly recommend Younis to replace Arthur because the record-breaking batsman is not only a wise individual but also has wealth of experience when it comes to working with the youngsters and grooming them.

And, of course, he is adept with the modern day cricket techniques and tricks which is an added advantage.

The other person who can serve the team well is ex-skipper Misbah-ul-Haq. Apponiting him as the manager of the team can do wonders in my opinion since he is also a very experienced and wise man and has great camaraderie with skipper Sarfraz.

On another front, Chief selector Inzamam is also rightly under fire for his many tours with the team which defies any logic really.

I myself have remained a national selector and chief selector on numerous occasions but hardly ever travelled with the team.

Besides, I had the honour of working as a selector with greats such as late Imtiaz Ahmed, Nazar Mohammad, Hanif Mohammad, Majid Khan, Zafar Altaf and Ejaz Butt but none of them even once accompanied the team.

So why is Inzamam being allowed to take the frequent tours and what purpose are they serving?

In the end, I woud like to praise PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani and his team for doing a brilliant job of hosting the smooth and incident free Pakistan Super League matches in Karachi which brought in hundreds of thousands of fans to the stadium who were provided with superb entertainment and competitive cricket.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2019