Haroon blames domestic structure behind green-shirts poor show

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LAHORE: Former Chief Selector Haroon Rasheed has termed the dismal state of Pakistan’s domestic structure the reason behind green-shirts poor show in the Asia Cup and World Twenty20.

The former right-handed batsman, who represented Pakistan in 23 Tests and 12 one-day internationals, said Pakistan’s domestic cricket structure needs to be revamped. “Such is the state that Pakistan team starts every international match with a deficit of 20-25 runs,” geo.tv quoted him as saying.

He said this is not the first time Pakistan has not managed to do well in a global event. “Pakistan lost three of its four games in the World T20, failing to reach the semi-finals,” he said.

He said in the Asia Cup T20, too, Pakistan only managed to win games against Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates, while losing comprehensively to India and Bangladesh. “I don’t believe in players’ accountability,” Haroon said.

“Opposition teams are easily capable of converting their singles into twos and twos into threes, and on the other hand, Pakistan batsmen cannot even convert their singles into doubles,” he said.

“If team wins, then all is well, but if it loses then nobody steps up to take the responsibility,” he said.

Haroon, 63, asked his critics to name a single player from the country who was not given his due chance.

“This is wrong that former head coach Waqar Younis was not given his desired players. I can name at least 10 people who were included on Waqar’s call,” he said.