Pakistan's great fall had been a long time coming. It has finally happened.

And with Pakistan's fall came the rise of Bangladesh.

“Bangladesh ends 16-year long wait,” the headlines read. And it did not just happen by chance. It was 16 years of toil; of belief in their young brigade. But most of all, it was about patience and infrastructure development. All with its share of messy politics.

Meanwhile, the chaotic descent of Pakistan cricket in those 16 year merits some serious questioning.

There was once a time when Pakistan cricket was a phenomenon. From introducing the reverse sweep and reverse swing to bowling pacy bouncers and inventing the doosra, Pakistan were a brand that kept on giving.

Also read: Cheering the new Azhar, missing the old Ajmal

One after another, players came in and replaced their successors. Abdul Haeez Kardar, Fazal Mahmood, Hanif Mohammad, Mushtaq Mohammad, Wasim Bari, Asif Iqbal, Zaheer Abbas, Majid Khan, Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Abdul Qadir, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Saeed Anwar, Saqlain Mushtaq, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Younis Khan, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Yousuf, the list is vast.

There is a reason one tends to keep going back in time with Pakistan. Each generation was punctuated with the emergence of a star — equally good and equally devastating for opponents.

But as the Inzamam-led era ended, there were many missing links. Of course, policies executed by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) have a lot do with this. In their attempt to take control over the players’ affairs and to weaken the established player power, seniors were targeted; man management was the least of their concern.

The next-to-be-superstars never got a chance to take charge of the team’s affairs after the departure of Inzamam.

The players too played their part in creating enough hurdles in the team building process. Conspiracy against Younis Khan’s captaincy is not hidden to anyone, nor are the rifts during Shoaib Malik’s tenure.

But still, the PCB takes the larger share of the cake when it comes to incompetency.

Take a look: Nation-building & sport promotion: Is Pakistan cricket failing?

In his opinion of Pakistan team’s dismal performance, former captain Rashid Latif was spot on in identifying the missing links.

“We have played around 90 players in the last five years and worse still we never allowed batsmen to settle on one position.

“We had 19 different opening pairs and there were a lot of changes in the bowling pairs as well and that's why our team is not settled,” says Latif.

But let's forget the past and who failed to perform their duty. How many of these 90 players come through a system, ready for the demands of international cricket?

Here's a look at Cricket Australia's numbers from 2013-2014 and the goals it met:

(A ‘participant’ is defined by the Australian Cricket Census as someone who participates in at least four sessions of a formal cricket program.)

-537,000 School participants

-400,000 Club/community participants

-169,000 Indoor participants

“The huge growth in national participation since 2010-11, which equates to around 255,000 additional cricketers in Australia, is largely attributed to a strong focus on making cricket more accessible for players of all ages, genders and cultural backgrounds across the country,” a Cricket Australia statement read. It is clear where the focus and money is being spent: the very bottom.

As Misbah-ul-haq, the PCB chief and all those associated with the team call upon fans to not ‘worry about the losses’, here is a simple question for newly-appointed chief selector Haroon Rashid.

In your several stints as PCB's Director Game Development and Head of Youth Development, did you fulfill your duty? If so, then should there have been such a lag in the ‘transition’ phase, that we failed to field an XI capable enough of beating Bangladesh? True, the ‘Tigers’ have come leaps and bounds, but where is our next generation?

And in the selection of the current squad, did you pick the best possible players from the reserves? How will you pick the best if you haven't been able to identify the best in your previous role?

It is hard to imagine that this is the best Pakistan has to offer. True, all teams go through dips, but not many see it coming for a decade and don't act upon it.