By Cricidiot

I want to start by saying that I understand what happened to Pakistan’s Test squad this week, and then I want to immediately take that back, because I don’t.

Here is what I have been able to establish, using the two research methods available to me, which are reading things and then reading them again more slowly.

Pakistan lost the first Test at Headingley by an innings and 103 runs. They then lost the second Test at Lord’s by 194 runs. These are what cricket people call heavy defeats and what I call a normal weekend, but I accept that the standards are different when you are a national side rather than a man who once bowled a wide so wide it was signalled by a different umpire.

On Monday the Pakistan Cricket Board responded. I have read the response several times, and I would like to walk you through it in the order the board did it, because the order is the funniest part.

The Magnificent Seven

Step one: the board released seven players. “Released” is the board’s word. It is the word you use for hostages, pigeons and albums, and I have not been able to work out which of those the board had in mind.

The seven are Mohammad Rizwan, Imam-ul-Haq, Salman Ali Agha, Ali Usman, Aamir Jamal, Muhammad Awais Zafar and Khurram Shahzad. You will remember the film. A village hires seven gunfighters to protect it, and three of them make it to the closing credits. Pakistan’s version has sent all seven home after two Tests, which is a worse survival rate than the film, and the film had bandits.

Some of the seven you can see coming. Some of them I have been staring at for two days.

Ali Usman took five wickets in England’s only innings at Headingley. It was his first five-wicket haul in Test cricket, and the first by an overseas spinner at that ground since Ashley Mallett in 1972, which means he did something at Headingley that nobody from outside England had managed in the lifetime of most of the selectors. The board’s response to this was to release him. I have read the MCC Laws of Cricket, or at least the front part, and nowhere in the front part does it say a five-for gets you a ticket home. I assume it is further in. The Laws are very long.

Salman Ali Agha captained Pakistan in a Test for the first time on 19 August, standing in for Babar Azam, who had been hit by a ball in the warm-up game. He made 25 runs in two innings, was left out at Lord’s, and on 31 August was released. Captain to ex-squad in twelve days. He does, however, remain unbeaten as Pakistan captain in every Test that reached a fifth day, and I would like to see the board try to take that away from him.

Imam-ul-Haq strained his left calf fielding on the first day at Lord’s and did not bat in either innings. The board’s medical update said ten days of rest. The board’s squad update said go home. These are compatible, in the sense that home is a good place to rest. I just notice the order they came in.

Mohammad Rizwan made 41 in the second innings at Headingley and kept wicket at Lord’s while Mohammad Abbas took nine wickets. He was released too, and he is the one to keep an eye on, because he comes back later in this story in a way he probably did not expect.

The replacements

Step two: the board named seven replacements. Two of them, Saim Ayub and Abdullah Fazal, have played Test cricket: eight caps and two. The other five have not. In the film, the village at least hires people who have done this before. Pakistan’s village has hired five people who have never seen a bandit and asked them to start on 9 September at Edgbaston, which is where the bandits live.

Shahid Afridi asked: “Even the replacements make no sense — T20 players have been included for a Test match in England?” I am not qualified to agree or disagree with Shahid Afridi about anything. I can only report that he said it in the tone of a man who was not expecting an answer.

Step three: the board released the head coach, Sarfaraz Ahmed, and the bowling coach, Umar Gul, and gave the Test team to Mike Hesson and Ashley Noffke, who coach Pakistan’s white-ball sides. So in the same week that the complaint was T20 players being picked for a Test, the board handed the Test to the T20 coaches. In fairness to the board, a Test match is, technically, about twenty-two T20s laid end to end, so this may be the most experienced they have ever felt.

The notice

Step four is the one I have been reading most slowly.

On the same Monday, the board sent a show-cause notice to its selectors, Aaqib Javed, Misbah-ul-Haq and Asad Shafiq, demanding a written explanation, within 24 hours, of why Mohammad Rizwan and Imam-ul-Haq had been picked for the tour in the first place. The notice cited a selection meeting on 2 June. The minutes of that meeting were submitted on 1 July. The board has therefore had two months to read why Rizwan was picked, and has now given the people who picked him one day to write it out again.

I have received show-cause notices before, mostly from landlords, and I can confirm that 24 hours is not enough time to explain anything you have done, let alone something you did in June.

But here is the bit I keep going back to. The selection committee has four members. The fourth is Sarfaraz Ahmed, who joined the committee in March and became head coach in April. He was in the room when Rizwan was picked. The reported notices went to the other three, which makes sense, because you cannot show cause to a man you have already sent to the airport.

Asad Shafiq did get a notice. Asad Shafiq is also the batting coach. So the board has asked the batting coach to explain, in writing, why the batters were chosen, while keeping him on as the batting coach, and while removing the batters. I am not making this up. I could not make this up. I have tried, for other columns, and it never comes out this clean.

I imagine the exchange went roughly like this, and I want to stress that I am imagining it:

BOARD: Why did you pick Rizwan?
SELECTORS: You were there.
BOARD: Answer in writing.
SELECTORS: Sarfaraz was there too.
BOARD: Sarfaraz has been released.
SELECTORS: Like a pigeon?
BOARD: Twenty-four hours.

Aaqib Javed went on Geo News this week and said, in effect, that he was one of four selectors and that the head coach and the captain had been part of the process. I believe him. That is what I was afraid of.

The resignation

Step five was not the board’s. By Tuesday, Misbah-ul-Haq had resigned from the selection committee, reportedly because nobody had consulted him about the seven replacements, which means a national selector found out who was in the national squad the same way I did, which is by reading about it. He also stepped down as batting consultant at the National Cricket Academy.

The board has not accepted his resignation. This is a thing I did not know a board could do. I have tried it with my dentist. Misbah will serve a notice period. Misbah, not the dentist.

Ramiz Raja said Pakistan cricket had “hit a panic button.” I would like to gently push back. A panic button is pressed once. This was a panic keyboard. Rashid Latif asked: “who created this team? Those who created the team, ironically, are the ones who are punishing the team.” Mickey Arthur, who coached Pakistan for three years, which by the board’s standards makes him a founding father, said: “they constantly chop and change players, coaches and selectors, and there is no stability.” I have nothing to add to that, which has never stopped me before.

So the running total, since the Lord’s Test ended on Sunday: seven players out, seven in, two coaches out, two in, three selectors under notice, one resignation not accepted, and one former head coach who was also a selector and is now neither, but might still be asked to explain himself if the board can find the address. England lead 2–0. The third Test starts at Edgbaston on 9 September. Nothing that happened this week changes that number, which is the one number in this story I understood on the first read.

What I understand

I would like to end on what I do understand, because it is short.

Pakistan lost two Test matches badly. Somebody had to be seen to do something. The board did four things, in that order, and then wrote to itself. Next week in Birmingham, five players who have never played a Test will walk out against an attack that has bowled Pakistan out four times in two matches, and be asked to fix in five days what the board has been trying to fix since April.

I hope they do. I mean that. I am an idiot, not a cynic, and the difference is that I will be watching.

I still cannot explain DLS. But for the first time in my life I am fairly sure I am not the most confused person connected to Pakistan cricket, and I intend to enjoy that for as long as it lasts, which, on this week’s evidence, is about 24 hours.

Cricidiot is a profoundly ignorant student of the game and a CricTalk house columnist. He has never successfully explained the DLS method. He has never met anyone who can.