New Delhi: Pakistan’s historic loss to Bangladesh at home has left fans in shock. It’s a grief not easy to process. They don’t know what is worse—repeated losses or their expectations of a win. Cricket commentators are at a loss of words and the social media consensus is to blame the Pakistan Army for its Kakul sessions that saw the national side train hard.
It all started here. #PAKvsBAN pic.twitter.com/HDJiBohYkG
— zoni (@ZunairaRasheed4) September 3, 2024
“The demise is now complete. How much lower can these overrated and overpaid ‘stars’ can drag Pakistan cricket down. It’s already hit rock-bottom. Can we now please move to rebuild hockey and squash and invest in athletics? Start from schools,” columnist Nadeem Farooq Paracha wrote on X.
Pakistanis are playing an active blame game and there are two main contenders—the Pakistan Army and the PCB chief Mohsin Naqvi.
“Thank you, Mohsin Naqvi. For turning Pakistan cricket into the ultimate ‘beginner’s luck’ training camp for emerging tape-ball champions. Under your leadership, we’ve not just lost matches; we’ve redefined what it means to ‘lose’ in cricket. Here’s to hoping our next opponent is a team of actual tape measures, because at this rate, they might even give us a run for our money,” one X user wrote.
Pakistanis anguished
Bangladesh defeated Pakistan Tuesday by six wickets in the second Test, completing a 2-0 series sweep in Rawalpindi.
Cricket analyst Hafiz Imran, speaking to Samaa TV, right after the match ended, said that often it feels like “the Pakistan team deliberately wants to lose”.
“Be it fans in Pakistan, or even from other countries who join us digitally, are now pained and hurt by this team’s performance. Often it seems that it is not one team but 11 different players, playing separately”, he added during the live telecast.
Sports journalist Faizan Lakhani also echoed similar sentiments and called this “Pakistan’s disastrous collapse”.
“It’s hard to accept that Pakistan’s cricket team has reached a point where they could lose a home series to Bangladesh. Are our players truly so lacking in skill that they can’t win – or even save – a match on their own turf? What has disrupted everything within the team over the last couple of years? It’s difficult to believe that this team is genuinely so poor,” he wrote on X.
Indian sports writer and journalist Ayaz Memon also weighed in. “Clean sweep by Bangladesh in Test series sinks Pakistan further into a deep black hole. The old cliche was that Pak cricket was enigmatic and unpredictable. Now, these days it’s predictably poor. In all formats,” he wrote.
Hurt Pakistanis have gone back to familiar comforts—memes. One X user shared a meme of Naqvi and COAS Asim Munir celebrating with each other with the caption, “Bangladesh whitewashed the Pakistan cricket team at PINDI.”
Bangladesh whitewashed the Pakistan cricket team at PINDI. pic.twitter.com/UalfGQke00
— wanderer (@Ahmeds4ys) September 3, 2024
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Conspiracy theories
Others have resorted to conspiracy theories. A video shared by digital strategist Saad Kaiser calls out the groupings of Babar Azam and Shan Masood in the team and shows Raza Butt’s show where the editor discusses how there is no love lost between Shaheen Afridi, Shan Masood, and Babar Azam.
“The cricket team fights over everything—money, captaincy, who gets more etc. The cricket team’s condition is similar to Pakistan, its politics and its governments”, Butt says in the video.
This series win marks Bangladesh’s second away series victory, following their successes against the West Indies in 2009 and Zimbabwe in 2021.
For Pakistan, the defeat is their fifth consecutive loss in the ongoing ICC World Test Championship, following three defeats against Australia and now two against Bangladesh. This losing streak has placed Pakistan in a difficult position, with it currently placed eighth on the WTC points table and holding a win percentage of just 19.05.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)