Indian premier Narendra Modi was asked which of the teams from India and Pakistan is better. Mr Modi quipped: “India and Pakistan recently played a match, and the result revealed which team is better!”
The match was the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 encounter in Dubai, which India won by six wickets to win the title.
When you talk about the standards of cricket in India and Pakistan, it describes a tale of two different trajectories. Cricket in India has gone from strength to strength and they are now the leaders of international cricket: both on and off the field.
It is a fact and a reality. Since the 2013 Champions Trophy in England, India have qualified for knock-out stages (semi-final or final) in all but one ICC event. They failed in the 2021 Twenty20 World Cup.
Pakistan has been struggling and lagging behind at the international level. They won the Champions Trophy in 2017 but have not qualified for the semi-finals of any ODI World Cup since 2011.
The cricket world had dreaded a time when India had a proper system in place and had a bigger pool of players. Former Australian captain and a great analyst of the game Ian Chappell believes the time has come to get scared of India’s domination.
“That’s the day India unearthed all the talent that was available and then fully capitalised by selecting their best team,” Ian wrote in the recent past.
“That time is well and truly upon the rest of the cricket world as India have showcased their amazing depth in the last few months.”
The contrasting styles of cricket administration are the key reason behind these two varied progressions of rival countries.
While the Board of Control for Cricket has managed the game through its associations, academies and a meticulous system put in place for well over a decade.
Former captain and ex-head coach Rahul Dravid has been the focal person in setting the pathways for Indian cricketers.
Pakistan has not managed to form a system, nor its former players have helped. There is no one in Pakistan cricket who could match the dedication and awareness of Dravid.
The depth and bench strength India has nowadays is an example for other countries.
Master Indian batter Virat Kohli very rightly asserted that with the young players India have they can dominate the world cricket in the near future.
It will be no shame if we follow the system adopted by India. They have two first-class tournaments in the Ranji and Duleep Trophy.
These two events are participated by 38 teams on an interstate basis, with 32 teams in the Elite and six in the Plate.
Then they have Vijay Hazare’s 50-over competition and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy which is a T20 event. Apart from selectors attending these events, BCCI relies on umpires and scouts who point out in detail about the talented players in these matches.
Around 150 junior players are selected from the 38 teams and they are groomed and developed at the NCA in Bengaluru.
For any piecemeal, system and program to succeed you need sincerity and honesty. All the stakeholders – from players to coaches to selectors to scouts – need to be on merit and promote merit.
What we have seen is that first-class matches are played with no selector watching.
The PCB needs to create pathways. It should start from Under-13, then Under-15, 19 and 23 which will serve as the talent factory for the senior team.
The players from these systems should play first-class cricket and then get a promotion to “A” level series.
The “A” level series is the platform where you develop your performers and it is the factory from where you get ready players to replace the incumbents in the national team.
The coach who is supervising the Under-13 players should be promoted to Under-15 after two years because he will be familiar with all those who are promoted to the next level.
In the same way, the coach who is given the task of Under-15 should look after the Under-17 team after two years and vice versa. In that way, the Pakistan Junior League was a good idea.
The only problem was that a big amount was spent on that project. It could have been done in one-third of that budget.
Pakistan cricket needs hard and consistent measures. Pakistan slumped in hockey because we were playing conservative hockey.
We never adopted the style needed for artificial turf and never improved the fitness of the players which is so requisite for a demanding game of hockey.
If we continue to adopt conservative measures in cricket then God forbid, we may suffer the same fate in cricket as we have met in hockey.
