Senior Pakistan players do not retire gracefully, claims Waqar Younis
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Waqar Younis has hit out at senior members within the Pakistan cricket team as he claimed that certain players do not know the art of retiring gracefully in order to pave the way for younger talent. Pakistan finished the World Cup in fifth spot with 11 points as they missed out on the semi-finals.
The Pakistan cricket team endured a topsy-turvy outing at this year’s World Cup in England as they had a disastrous start to their WC campaign winning just one match from their first five games. However, Mickey Arthur’s boys recovered well as they went on to win all the remaining four matches in the group stage ultimately missing out on the final qualifying spot to eventual runner-ups New Zealand due to an inferior net run-rate.
Former Pakistan pacer Waqar Younis claimed that the failure of the Pakistan team at the quadrennial showpiece boiled down to the fact that certain senior members in the team did not know when to retire in order to pave the way for younger talent to make their mark with the national team.
"Till the last moment, our World Cup squad was not final and clear. There is a big problem that senior players try to linger on in their careers and there is no one to tell them it is time for them to retire gracefully.
"For the last so many years, we see the same thing. At the last moment, seniors are brought in as the authorities are scared to lose in a big tournament," Younis was quoted as saying by PTI sources.
Waqar, who played 262 ODIs and 87 Test matches for Pakistan, further added that the biggest problem with the Pakistan selection process that it compromises on fitness levels of the players in the team.
"The way we struggled to win against Afghanistan in the final over it should not be like that. Our biggest problem is we make compromises in selection on fitness issues, seniority, and other matters.
"After every World Cup, we see the same script in our cricket with only the characters changed. But this is not the way to move forward we need to assess where we are going wrong. Every four years we do the same exercise change the captain, sack the coaches and shoot the chief selector and blame the domestic structure but this leads to nowhere and the same mistakes are repeated again,"Â Waqar said in an interview to the Daily Jang newspaper.
