Mohammad Hafeez highlights reasons for Pakistan’s shortcoming on foreign tours

Veteran middle-order batsman Mohammad Hafeez has criticised the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for selecting the players solely on the basis of their talent.

The 40-year-old, during an interaction with the media, urged the board to pay attention towards treating a player as a product rather than just as a talent.

“There are talks of the country having a lot of talent,” said Hafeez. “Maybe there is but as far as I have noticed after playing the game for so long, it is not the talent with the bat or ball which matters at the international level. It is the product which matters there. We aren’t working on that.

“In Pakistan, players emerge only on the basis of their talent whereas they don’t go through the product-making process.”

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The Lahore-born cricketer gave the example of India’s cricket structure to support his argument. “They played without their regular captain and their performance made us happy as fans of the game.

They were dismissed for 36 in the first Test and went on to win the [four-match series against Australia] by 2-1. The main difference between us and them is that we field our talented players whereas they develop their talented players into a product.”

He said that the “talented players” will have a dip in their performances at some stage of their careers as they have not undergone the complete product-making process.

“In my own personal experience, having products at your disposal will be beneficial because you can only go so far as a talent, to take bigger steps in difficult conditions and against a tougher opposition, a product is necessary,” he said.

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