Rashid Latif, a former captain of Pakistan, pointed out malfunctioning areas in the cricket setup within the country. He said that Pakistan is far behind in cricket as a nation. It was Latif’s view that India had transformed its cricket environment into a money-minting factory, something he observed is not happening in Pakistan. This was after what he termed as disastrous showing during the T20 World Cup 2024 by Pakistan. Former players and fans continue criticizing the Babar Azam-led team.
Latif noted a wide gap between IPL and PSL, citing the absence of a single global star in the latter due to financial constraints. He argued that cricket was viewed more as recreation by our nation but never translated it into a commercial enterprise. This statement raised many questions about how we address the present situation where there are continually losing revenues in our clubs.
India built a cricket as they did a film industry also. Cricket is a hobby so we have not been able to make it a business entity. PSL is still there. The upper limit of the highest salary is one million four hundred thousand. Why are they not pushing it further? Why can’t we have the players such as Mitchell Starc or Pat Cummins? The reason is we do not have enough funds in business,” he was quoted as saying on News18.
Winning the T20 World Cup 2024 showed that Indian team had pinned themselves to the world map. ICC tournament history has always placed a higher weight on the Indian team. On the contrary, Pakistan has found it hard to excel in international cricket for years. Latif said that over time, the Indian team has been nourished by International Coaches.
“It’s not that India became a reckoning force in world cricket recently, after the World Cup. Go back to 2007, 2011, 2015. They have gained so much knowledge from the foreign coaches and at the same time, they are working at the grassroots level without being noticed. And then IPL came into play. And now, they have all the best minds with them. They have Ponting with DC, Hussey, and Bravo. But hum kya kar rahe hain,” added Latif.
