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KEY TAKEAWAYS: - Pakistan's Test squad and coaching staff faced a wholesale overhaul mid-series in England. - Five years since Ehsan Mani's exit, Pakistan cricket has cycled through constant captaincy, coaching, and administrative instability. - Pakistan's overall records across formats show declining Test performance despite reasonable success in white-ball ICC tournaments. Scapegoats or systemic failure? Inside Pakistan cricket's toxic coach & captain merry-go-round that never ends There's an easy target sitting right in front of us every time Pakistan's cricketers walk out to bat or bowl, and when the team fails miserably, they become sitting ducks waiting for hellfire to be showered on them from all directions. English critics, Indian commentators, and former players have all taken their turns swinging at it this summer. Worst side ever. Barely fit for county cricket's second division. Faking injuries. Scared batters. Slow bowlers. It's all been said, loudly, and the results on the pitch have done little to counter it. In the first Test at Headingley, they were defeated by an innings and 103 runs. In the next at Lord's, the margin was by 194 runs. It was their 10th loss in their last eleven away Tests. They are at the rock bottom of the World Test Championship table, but scoreboards rarely tell the whole story. MORE: Latif slams PCB as 'worst cricket board in 70 years' after horror ENG Test series Getty Images Why does calling this Pakistan's weakest Test side come with a heavy caveat? If we're prepared to call this Pakistan's weakest Test side in living memory, then fairness demands we say something else in the same breath: this is also the product of arguably the worst administrative stretch in the country's cricketing history. Since Ehsan Mani stepped down as PCB chairman, the Test graph has mostly nose-dived, barring some rare highs. Trace the consequences of those five years chronologically, and a troubling pattern emerges. Domestic pitches that once offered a contest between bat and ball suddenly turned lifeless and flat. It is a baffling reversal after a period when Pakistan was actually producing decent surfaces. The domestic tournaments, the very pipeline these current players emerged from, have been left to rot through sheer neglect. It's worth remembering that most of the players currently copping abuse in England are, in fact, Pakistan's leading domestic performers. The problem isn't necessarily the players themselves; it's the battered, shapeless structure they've been asked to develop within. MORE: Seven players sent home: Pakistan take drastic action in the middle of disastrous England tour How did the latest crisis in England unfold? England have an unassailable 2-0 series lead, which has turned the final Test at Edgbaston into a dead rubber before a ball has even been bowled. Pakistan's think tank, rather than showing composure, responded with reckless wholesale changes. Seven players were released from the squad entirely, five of whom had featured in the series. Mohammad Rizwan, Imam-ul-Haq, Salman Ali Agha, Ali Usman and Khurram Shahzad were all sent home, whereas Aamir Jamal and Muhammad Awais Zafar were also cut, despite not playing a single match on the tour. The coaching staff didn't escape either. Head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and bowling coach Umar Gul were both relieved of their positions, replaced by white-ball head coach Mike Hesson and former Australian seamer Ashley Noffke for the remainder of the series. Among the fresh faces brought in, only Saim Ayub and Abdullah Fazal carry any Test experience, having played eight and two Tests respectively. The rest arrive entirely uncapped. Sarfaraz Khan has been handed just five Tests to prove his worth, while Salman Ali Agha, who led the side at Headingley, was dropped in the second Test after Babar Azam got fit again. The constant chopping and changing has become a hallmark of the current PCB administration, and their decision to make several changes during an ongoing series reflects panic instead of level-headed decision-making. Former Pakistan head coach Mickey Arthur didn't hold back on social media, framing this latest reshuffle as symptomatic of a much deeper, recurring problem. "Absolutely ridiculous decisions by the PCB - this is the reason they are in the mess they are in because they constantly chop and change players, coaches and selectors and there is no stability! Planning, stability and structure = consistent performance," Arthur wrote. The South African has worked closely within the setup for several years, and his judgement is spot on. What do Pakistan's numbers over the last five years actually show? The statistics behind this crisis paint an inconsistent picture across formats, and it's worth laying them out properly rather than relying purely on emotional reaction. | Format | Matches Played | Won | Lost | Tied / Draw / NR | Win % | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Test Cricket | 35 | 10 | 18 | 7 | 28.5% | | One Day Internationals (ODI) | 58 | 33 | 22 | 3 | 56.8% | | Twenty20 Internationals (T20I) | 114 | 64 | 44 | 6 | 56.1% | Interestingly, Pakistan's white-ball numbers over this same five-year period aren't actually disastrous, as they sit above 56 per cent in both ODIs and T20Is. It's specifically Test cricket where the collapse has been most severe, with a win rate of just 28.5 per cent across 35 matches. Their record in major ICC tournaments during this window tells a slightly more nuanced story too. | Tournament | Edition | Host | Stage Reached / Result | |---|---|---|---| | ICC Men's T20 World Cup | 2021 | UAE / Oman | Semi-Finals | | ICC Men's T20 World Cup | 2022 | Australia | Runners-up (Finalist) | | ICC Men's Cricket World Cup | 2023 | India | Group Stage (5th Place) | | ICC Men's T20 World Cup | 2024 | USA / West Indies | Group Stage Exit | | ICC Champions Trophy | 2025 | Pakistan / UAE | Group Stage Exit | | ICC Men's T20 World Cup | 2026 | India / Sri Lanka | Super 8 Exit | A runners-up finish in 2022 and a semi-final appearance in 2021 show that Pakistan was still competitive in white-ball cricket not so long ago. But the sharp decline through 2023, 2024, 2025 and now 2026 mirrors almost exactly the administrative chaos unfolding behind the scenes during the same stretch. The players aren't the disease; they're just the symptom Here's the uncomfortable truth nobody watching this collapse from a comfortable studio chair seems eager to admit: you cannot build a functioning Test side on a foundation this unstable and then act shocked when the results collapse too. Pakistan have sacked coaches, barely giving them a handful of matches to implement anything resembling a system. Add to it a domestic structure so neglected that even Pakistan's best available players arrive undercooked for international cricket. That's not a coincidence; that's the result of flawed policy at the top level. Mocking individual players for faking injuries or looking scared misses the actual story entirely. These cricketers are operating inside a system that offers them zero continuity, zero stability, and constantly shifting leadership above them. Imagine trying to build confidence and partnership on a cricket field when you don't even know if your captain, coach, or teammates will still be there for the next Test. That's not a recipe for good cricket; it's a recipe for exactly what we've watched unfold in England. MORE: Has any team made drastic changes to their squad in the middle of a series before? Arthur's criticism cuts closest to the real issue: stability and structure produce consistent performance, not talent alone. Pakistan has never lacked raw cricketing ability, its production line of gifted players remains remarkable given how little proper support that domestic pipeline receives. What it lacks is an administration willing to commit to a long-term plan rather than reacting to every defeat with another wholesale reshuffle. Until the PCB itself is held to the same scrutiny currently being poured onto these players, until questions are asked about governmental interference and neglected domestic structures, this cycle will simply repeat itself with different names attached. The players in England this summer aren't the disease. They're just the most visible symptom of an administration that's been failing them for close to half a decade, and until that changes, no amount of squad reshuffling will fix what's actually broken. For all the latest cricket news, opinion, and commentary and to share your voice, head to our Facebook, Instagram, and X (Twitter) pages.