O Some kid in a narrow gali somewhere in Pakistan, playing tape ball cricket with a piece of wood that's barely a bat. He's genuinely talented. He puts in years and years of hard work. Gets into domestic cricket. Performs. And then... nothing. He just kind of disappears. Meanwhile, some other guy whose uncle happens to be the Chief Selector walks straight into the national team after like two good knocks.
You've seen this. I've seen this. Everyone's seen this. We all talk about it at home, in the car, in group chats. But somehow, the moment it comes to actually calling it out publicly total silence. Like some invisible rule says "yeah bro we all know but don't say it out loud."
Well, today we're saying it out loud. This isn't a rant, this is a proper sit-down. Let's talk about nepotism in Pakistan cricket who, how, and why nobody ever gets held accountable for it.
1. The Imam Thing Come On, We All Saw It
Alright let's start with the most obvious one. Inzamam-ul-Haq becomes Chief Selector in 2016. And then, I kid you not within a year, his nephew Imam-ul-Haq is making his international debut.
Now look, Imam is not a bad cricketer. That's not the point. The point is: would a guy with those exact same numbers, that exact same form, get that many second chances if his last name wasn't connected to the guy signing the selection sheets? You already know the answer. Everyone does.
Every time Imam had a rough patch, instead of getting dropped like any regular player would, he'd just... still be there. Getting another series. Another shot. There was always a soft landing for him that other openers simply never got. And when people brought this up? Inzamam basically said "merit tha" and the whole conversation just died. PCB said nothing. Media moved on. Done.
Find me one other Pakistan opener who got recalled as many times after bad form as Imam did. The "merit" argument falls apart the second you compare his treatment to players with similar or better stats who got one bad series and never came back. The invisible safety net was real and everyone knew where it came from.
2. PCB Chairmen and It's Never Been a Cricket Job, Bro
Honestly, at this point I think we need to just accept that the PCB Chairman role has nothing to do with cricket. It's basically a reward you give your friend or political ally. That's it. That's the whole job description.
Under Musharraf loyalists ran it. Under Zardari colours changed accordingly. Under Nawaz Najam Sethi became a one-man revolving door. Guy got appointed, removed, appointed again, removed again. Multiple governments, multiple rounds. Same guy. Wild.
And then Imran Khan comes to power and appoints Ramiz Raja his close friend and ex-teammate as PCB Chairman in 2021. No open process. No applications. No committee. Prime Minister picked his mate. That's it. Ramiz is a smart guy and knows cricket, sure but that's not why he got the job. We all know that.
And the moment Imran Khan was out of power? Ramiz was gone within days. Not because the team underperformed. Not because of some cricket reason. Because the political wind changed. This is not how you run a sport. This is how you run a favour system dressed up as sport.
3. Misbah Playing Coach AND Selector Bro, Why?
Okay this one genuinely baffled me. In 2019, Misbah-ul-Haq was given the job of Head Coach AND Chief Selector. At the same time. One person. Both roles.
Think about what that actually means. As coach, you want players you trust, players you have relationships with. As selector, you're supposed to be completely neutral and pick purely on evidence. These two things cannot exist in the same brain at the same time. It's a conflict of interest so obvious that you have to wonder if it was done on purpose because it concentrates all the power in one trusted person, which is exactly what certain people in the PCB wanted.
And sure enough some selections during Misbah's time raised serious eyebrows. Players from his era kept getting calls when a lot of fans felt their time had honestly passed. When results went south, both roles collapsed together and everyone sort of shrugged. No accountability. No "we probably shouldn't have done that." Just on to the next guy.
Waqar Younis, who was bowling coach at the time, later talked publicly about tensions within the setup. The whole arrangement existed because it was convenient for the people at the top — not because it was good for Pakistan cricket. It wasn't. And the players who missed out on fair selection during that period paid the price for it.
4. Shoaib Malik are How Many Comebacks, Seriously?
Look, I genuinely respect Shoaib Malik's career. The guy's fitness levels are honestly impressive, and he had moments of real quality. But if we're being honest with each other, some of his late-career recalls made absolutely no sense on cricket merit alone.
Malik has always had connections. He moved in the right circles, knew the right people at different points across multiple selection regimes. His marriage to Sania Mirza gave him a media profile that most Pakistan cricketers can only dream of. And somehow, no matter how many times he got dropped, the door was never fully closed.
There are players from interior Sindh, from rural Punjab, from KPK with genuinely similar or better late-career numbers who got one bad series and were never heard from again. Malik kept getting calls. You tell me why.
5. The Afridi Family Situation in Women's Cricket Too?
This one's a bit sensitive but honestly needs to be said. Shahid Afridi is one of the most beloved cricketers Pakistan has ever produced total legend, no doubt. But when his daughter Ansha Afridi started appearing in Pakistan women's cricket setups at a level that coaches and selectors privately questioned, people looked the other way. Because it's Lala. You don't talk about Lala.
Afridi denied pulling any strings. Maybe he didn't directly. But the optics are terrible and the pattern is familiar and powerful name in cricket, daughter gets accelerated access to a system where he has influence. It doesn't have to be a phone call. Sometimes just being who you are opens doors that stay shut for everyone else.
And that's what makes it extra rough in women's cricket specifically. These women have fought against their families, against social pressure, against financial hardship just to be on a cricket ground. When a spot goes to someone because of a surname, it's not just unfair, it's a slap in the face to every girl who made it there the hard way.
This isn't just a cricket problem. Pakistan runs on sifarish, the whole country does. The cricket board is just a mirror of the society around it. Which honestly makes it more depressing, not less. Because it means fixing cricket requires fixing something much bigger. But that conversation still has to start somewhere.
Here's one people don't talk about enough. Nepotism isn't always about family. Sometimes it's about where you're from. And if you're from anywhere that isn't a major city like Balochistan, interior Sindh, AJK, rural KPK, you are already playing the game on hard mode.
Selectors mostly watch matches they can conveniently get to. The domestic structure gives better resources to regions with infrastructure. The talent pipeline from smaller regions is barely functional. The result? Genuinely exceptional cricketers from these areas either get discovered by accident, or never get discovered at all.
When someone like Mohammad Amir comes out of Gujjar Khan, or Yasir Shah from Swabi we celebrate them like they're miracles. But they shouldn't be miracles. They should be normal. The fact that they feel like exceptions is exactly the problem.
7. So Why Does Nobody Say Anything?
This is honestly the most interesting part. Nepotism exists everywhere in the world. What's unique about Pakistan cricket is how completely surrounded by silence it is. And it's not random there are real reasons the silence holds.
First: the old boys' network. Former players become coaches, commentators, selectors, board members. Criticising someone from "your era" is just not done. There's this unspoken brotherhood and it extends from the dressing room straight into protecting each other's institutional power.
Second: the media situation. Most cricket journalists in Pakistan need access to survive. You need player interviews, board statements, insider info. The moment you write something that upsets the wrong person, that access dries up overnight. So you stay quiet. You frame things gently. You don't ask the uncomfortable question in the press conference.
Third: fans want wins. Honestly, whenever a team built on connections somehow does well, the result becomes the excuse. "Imam scored a hundred" suddenly means his selection was always justified. The structural problem disappears the moment someone plays a good knock. We let results do the work that accountability should be doing.
8. What Would Actually Fix This?
Alright so it's easy to complain. What would actually help? A few things that genuinely could work if anyone with power actually wanted them to:
Independent selection panels with zero overlap with coaching staff. Selection criteria published before a series is announced not after the team is already picked. Proper conflict of interest declarations from every PCB official. Real scouting programmes in underrepresented regions with actual accountability. And a media culture that's willing to ask the questions that might cost them a press pass.
None of this is complicated or new. England has independent governance reviews. Australia has formal conflict of interest policies. Other boards have term limits. We have press conferences where everyone already knows what the answer will be before the question is even asked.
Conclusion:
Look, Pakistan cricket has produced some of the greatest players to ever play the game. Imran. Wasim. Waqar. Inzamam. Younis. Misbah. These legends were mostly products of sheer, undeniable, impossible-to-hide talent. The game couldn't say no to them. But the structures those same legends later built around themselves? Not exactly designed with the next generation in mind.
Talking about nepotism isn't anti-cricket. It's the most pro-cricket thing you can do. It's saying: we have 240 million people in this country, a crazy amount of natural talent, and we want a national team that actually represents the best of all of that not just whoever had the right breakfast meeting with the right selector.
Every kid playing tape ball in a broken gali deserves a system that actually sees them. That's not a big ask. That's literally the minimum. And until we start saying this stuff loudly enough that it becomes uncomfortable for the people in power and nothing changes. The sifarish continues, the excuses continue, and we keep wondering why we underperform in tournaments we should be winning.
The talent is there. It's always been there. The people running the system just keep looking the other way and we've been letting them get away with it for way too long.
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