Pakistan cricket is not merely losing; it is disappearing. The green shirts still walk onto the field, the anthem still plays, and the familiar crest remains over every player’s heart. Yet the substance beneath those symbols—the courage, skill, imagination and bloody-minded resistance that once defined Pakistan—appears dead and buried.
At Lord’s, Pakistan were dismissed for 110 and 194, losing the second Test by 194 runs and conceding the series 2–0. Their target was 389, but they quickly collapsed to 14 for three. Saud Shakeel’s magnificent 97 briefly provided resistance, yet even his innings felt like a flower laid upon a grave. England’s Ollie Robinson took eight wickets in the match, while Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue supplied the hostility Pakistan once exported to the world.
That is the cruelest irony. England’s attack now resembles the Pakistan of old: fast, varied, confident and predatory. Pakistan, meanwhile, resemble frightened tenants inside a house their ancestors built.
The decline is not confined to one miserable Test. Pakistan have progressively dismantled their traditional strengths. Their top order is technically vulnerable, their middle order has become statistically the weakest in the current World Test Championship cycle, and their fast-bowling heritage has been diluted. Batters occupying positions five to seven have averaged only 24.64—the lowest collective figure among WTC nations.
Previously, Pakistan could survive disorder because they produced strong characters: Imran Khan imposing belief, Javed Miandad turning hostility into fuel, Wasim Akram finding victory inside lost matches, Waqar Younis attacking stumps as though personally offended by them, and Inzamam-ul-Haq batting amid chaos with the stillness of a monument. Today’s side appears almost apologetic. Its players do not seize matches; they wait for matches to happen to them.
Modern franchise cricket has not created every Pakistani weakness, but it has offered an attractive escape from the harder work of Test excellence. Short contracts promise money, visibility and immediate reward. Test cricket demands something less glamorous: technical reconstruction, long domestic innings, physical durability, patience and the willingness to suffer anonymously. It would be unfair to claim, without evidence, that every player values money above country. Nevertheless, the structure plainly rewards the travelling franchise professional more quickly than it rewards the craftsman committed to five-day cricket.
The result is a team familiar with the theatre of aggression but increasingly incapable of its substance. They talk about intent, yet surrender sessions. They celebrate potential, yet neglect production. They possess social-media stardom without corresponding command of difficult conditions.
No figure represents that contradiction more vividly than Babar Azam.
Babar is not a joke as a cricketer; his record contains too many elegant and significant innings for such a crude verdict. But the mythology constructed around him has become absurdly greater than the player visible in decisive moments. He is advertised as a modern master and repeatedly placed beside the era’s very best. Such status cannot rest upon cover drives, rankings and attractive runs accumulated when the contest is comfortable. Greatness is established when the ball moves, the team trembles and defeat approaches.
At Lord’s, Babar returned as captain and senior batter but made eight in the first innings. In the second, with Pakistan pursuing 389, Archer dismissed him with a sharp bouncer as the score became 14 for three. Pakistan did not require elegance then; they required defiance. Their supposed standard-bearer could provide neither.
Babar therefore deserves severe criticism—not because he lacks talent, but because his reputation has consistently outrun his influence. Calling him a “total failure” erases his genuine achievements. Calling him overrated, however, is defensible whenever celebrity is mistaken for greatness and aesthetically pleasing batting is confused with leadership. Pakistan have made him the face of their cricket without demanding that the face reveal courage under fire.
The institutional failure is deeper still: unstable selection, revolving leadership, confused pitches, weak domestic preparation and the absence of a coherent Test identity. Pakistan once produced cricketers through hardship. Now the system produces uncertainty, then asks individuals to perform miracles.
That is why Pakistan have become a laughing stock. Opponents no longer fear their unpredictability; they expect their collapse. Former giants are now treated as a convenient opportunity for struggling teams to recover confidence.
Yet the game is not literally dead. It is worse: it is alive enough to remember what it once was.
Revival will require uncomfortable choices—rewarding red-ball specialists, restoring domestic credibility, selecting on performance rather than reputation,You limiting franchise distractions where necessary and ending the cult of untouchable stars.
Until then, Pakistan will continue wearing the uniform of a great cricketing nation while performing like the ghost of one.
Thank You
Faisal Caesar
