Following Pakistan’s disastrous exit from the T20 World Cup 2026, national selector Aaqib Javed has urged the country’s cricket board to respond in a level-headed manner. Desperate to save his job, Javed said Pakistan should move away from the culture of scapegoating after a tough tournament.
Pakistan has gone through a very tough time in international cricket in the last four years. Since appearing in the T20 World Cup final in 2022, the team has been knocked out in the group stages of the 2023 ODI World Cup, 2024 T20 World Cup and 2025 Champions Trophy. It stuttered in the 2025 Asia Cup and failed again in the 2026 T20 World Cup.
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PAKISTAN’S SPIRAL IN WORLD CRICKET
Not only were the team’s performances poor, the Pakistan Cricket Board also failed to stick to a consistent team management group, hiring and firing some of the best coaches in the world, including Gary Kirsten and Jason Gillespie. Amidst all the hiring and firing, it is Aaqib Javed who has survived the PCB’s wrath.
However, after yet another disaster in the world tournament, Javed proactively found a solution and changed the culture of the team, stating that the PCB needs to respond constructively after tough tournaments.
“In our setup, whenever a team loses, there is always a demand to punish someone,” Aaqib Javed said at a press conference in Lahore on Saturday, March 14.
“It happened in the previous World Cup, then the Champions Trophy and the Asia Cup. Whenever we lose, we go over the top and demand that the whole team, coach or selectors be changed. The way we change coaches and selectors is not happening anywhere else in world cricket. We will have to make scapegoats,” he added.
The national selector argued that the team performed well in the 2024-25 season but did not perform well in the Champions Trophy held in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. The home side had to travel to the United Arab Emirates to face India, where they failed miserably against their arch-rivals.
“I admit the Champions Trophy was a disaster. Till then the team’s performance was good. We beat South Africa, Sri Lanka and Australia here which indicated that we will do well in the T20 World Cup. You didn’t expect this team to do well? I sure did,” said Javed.
‘THEN CRICKET WAS NOT RUINED’
The former player also defended Pakistan’s T20 World Cup 2026 campaign, stating that it was only one game in the Super 8s that the team lost, which ended up adversely affecting their net run rate.
“We qualified for the second round and lost only one game to England. Did something else happen? It was not possible to win by the margin we wanted against Sri Lanka. We lost only one game and missed out only on sheer pace. It’s not a big deal to say our cricket was ruined,” Javed said.
Pakistan are currently playing a three-match series in Bangladesh. After losing the first game, Pakistan made a big comeback in the second ODI, winning the rain-affected match by 128 runs.
The new selection committee, which includes big names like Misbah-ul-Haq and Sarfaraz Ahmed, has been named after the team’s exit from the T20 World Cup. The new committee will be responsible for building the country’s squad for the 2027 ODI World Cup.
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Issued by:
Kingshuk Kusari
Published on:
14 March 2026 21:43 IST
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