In several previous write-ups, I have mentioned from many angles that sports are dying out in our society or the quality of sports is declining.

There was a time when we ruled hockey, there was a time when we ruled squash, our great athlete brothers became Olympians, there was no team to compete with our hockey team, sometimes the names of Shahnaz Sheikh and Islahuddin used to resonate in the hockey fields, sometimes there were discussions about Samiullah and Kaleemullah, then the magic of Hassan Sardar and Shahbaz Senior continued, then who knows who caught our eye? In the world of squash, Jahangir Khan and Jan Sher Khan used to be the stunner. Similarly, in the world of cricket, sometimes we had batsmen like Fazal Mahmood, Zaheer Abbas and Javed Miandad, then we had batters like Majid Khan and Mohsin Hassan Khan as part of our batting line-up.

Our Saeed Anwar and Aamir Sohail taught the world of cricket how to play fast. Once upon a time, we had the fastest fast bowlers like Sarfaraz Nawaz, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar. In spin bowling, we had Abdul Qadir, Saqlain Mushtaq and Saeed Ajmal. Imran Khan, the great all-rounder who contributed a lot to cricket in the world of cricket, was our captain.  Pakistan introduced impartial umpires in the world of cricket. Our players have also fought against match-fixing, gambling in cricket.  Our cricket captains were such great players who always took the field with the determination to win. Their bowling, batting and captaincy are all memorable.  We also won the 92 World Cup when every players played great cricket. Today, when we look at hockey, squash and cricket, we feel the lack of great players.

We feel proud of the great past, but then when I think of the present, I feel bad. All these things come to my mind after watching the match played between Pakistan and India. During the match played in Dubai on Sunday, the Pakistan team failed in all three areas, batting, bowling and fielding, while the Indian team's bowling was also excellent. Their batting is as good as it gets, but Indian batsmen are considered among the best batsmen in the world.  They also fielded brilliantly. India comfortably defeated their traditional rival Pakistan by six wickets. Winning and losing is part of the game, but we should compete, okay! After the defeat in this match, the Pakistani team is almost out of the Champions Trophy. Three questions are very important at this important juncture. After reviewing hockey, cricket, squash and football in Pakistan, it can be concluded that the federations of these sports spend more of their budget on themselves and less on the players.

Politics has entered these sports somewhere or the other, which is clearly visible in the selection of players. Another thing is very important, there was a time when we used to have sports at the tehsil, district and division levels, then these games were held at the provincial level, thus the best talent used to come forward, but now it does not happen because in the "educational revolution" that has come here, there are no playgrounds in schools and colleges.  How can a country that does not have playgrounds in schools and colleges produce great players? Let alone players, here a sick nation is being created that is not physically and mentally fit, so if we want our performance in sports to be good, we will have to build playgrounds in schools and colleges, we will have to attract students from college to university towards sports along with studies, we will have to popularize sports at the tehsil, division and provincial levels, we will have to explain one thing to the sports federations that they should focus more on their own players, politics will have to be ignored while selecting new teams, according to cricket analysts. When Pakistan got the opportunity to host international cricket matches after 29 years, expectations were set with great enthusiasm at the national level that the national team, as the defending champions, would display a very high standard of play and be successful in maintaining its honor.

From the head of the cricket board to the selection officials, experts and analysts, everyone played a full role in raising the optimism of the countrymen to the sky by making lofty claims of victory and success, but this palace of sky-high hopes has already started to suffer defeat and destruction in the competition, while after New Zealand, the national team not only lost to India the day before but could not prove its competence in any respect. The Indian team performed much better than the Pakistani team in every aspect of the game, while the national team's batting, bowling and fielding were all very disappointing.  The result is that Pakistan's hopes of reaching the semi-finals of the tournament in the ICC Champions Trophy have almost died, while India has reached the semi-finals. Our dream of reaching the semi-finals can now become a reality only if New Zealand loses the remaining two matches and Pakistan manages to defeat Bangladesh by a huge margin, but how difficult it is to decide this seven-match series, this does not need any explanation. Cricket is undoubtedly a game of coincidences, but after all, why does good luck become our destiny on most occasions and bad luck becomes our destiny? The poor performance of the national team becoming the norm and giving very little evidence of good play, requires a serious examination of all matters of national cricket. 

The responsibility for these defeats lies with the personalities involved in the formation and training of the team, so this work should now be entrusted to more qualified people selected on the basis of merit.