PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi has defended his board’s decision to overhaul half the squad and remove the head coach following Pakistan’s 194-run defeat at Lord’s, saying there was no alternative but to bring in replacements after the loss sealed a 2-0 series defeat to England. He also pushed back against criticism of his administration, calling suggestions that Pakistani cricket is headed toward terminal decline “unfair,” and warned against what he described as an effort to demotivate the players.
The PCB’s decision to replace seven players and remove head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and bowling coach Umar Gul ahead of the now-dead-rubber third Test at Edgbaston has drawn widespread criticism, with experts around the world expressing shock, and former players including Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Malik voicing disapproval publicly.
“There is always criticism when it comes to team selection and I am not bothered by it,” Naqvi told Geo Network, speaking publicly for the first time since the decision. “We are answerable for results and what happened in the last two matches is wrong. But we are looking for improvement in the Test format as we have had in the ODIs and T20Is.”
Pakistan’s broader decline in cricket has drawn comparisons to the trajectory of hockey in the country, a sport Pakistan once dominated with four World Cup titles and three Olympic golds before a steep decline after the turn of the century; the hockey team recently finished 11th at a 16-team World Cup, its first appearance in the tournament in eight years. The Lord’s defeat marked Pakistan’s 15th loss in their last 20 Tests, leaving them at the bottom of the World Test Championship standings, where they also finished the previous cycle. The team has also missed the semi-finals of the last three ICC tournaments, exited the group stage of last year’s home Champions Trophy, fell in the Super Eight stage of this year’s T20 World Cup, and suffered an embarrassing group-stage exit from the 2024 T20 World Cup after losing to the USA in Dallas.
Naqvi pushed back against the narrative of collapse by pointing to other cricketing nations. “Did cricket come to an end in South Africa and India after they lost to Namibia and Ireland?” he asked, noting that South Africa currently hold the WTC title and India the men’s T20 World Cup crown.
He defended the squad changes as a matter of necessity rather than punishment. “Every match of a series is important for us and we are not left with any option if a player is not performing but to look for his replacement. The purpose behind these changes is not to axe players from contention, but just to replace them,” he said, citing Salman Agha as an example of a talented player who simply hadn’t clicked for reasons the board had discussed with him directly.
Naqvi acknowledged everyone’s right to criticise performances, but objected to framing recent losses as evidence of terminal decline, saying he regularly consults former cricketers and agrees Pakistan’s Test form has been poor, with the board working to identify the underlying causes, which he said extend beyond performance alone. He said he would not allow players to be blamed unfairly and called for an end to what he characterised as efforts to demoralise the team.
He suggested much of the criticism directed at the board and team stemmed from his own position at the helm, and countered it with figures on the white-ball formats: since the appointment of Mike Hesson as head coach of the white-ball sides, Pakistan have risen from eighth to fifth in the ODI rankings and won four of six series, while climbing from ninth to sixth in T20Is, with their win rate rising from 24% to 73%. Pakistan were ranked fifth in ODIs and eighth in T20Is when Hesson’s appointment was announced on May 13, 2025, and stood fourth in both formats at the start of 2024, a month before Naqvi became PCB chairman; they now sit fifth in ODIs and sixth in T20Is. In Tests, however, they were sixth in the rankings at the start of 2024 and have since fallen to eighth.
The PCB will be hoping the seven reinforcements, including five uncapped players, deliver performances the board can build around ahead of the current cycle’s final two assignments, home series against Sri Lanka and New Zealand.
