Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi said that the Champions Cup will help them to perform the much-required ‘surgery’ to overcome the men’s team’s recent struggles. Naqvi also stated that the selection committee hardly has the talent pool to choose players as well. However, Pakistan’s recent performances across formats over the last few months have gone down.

Recalling his ‘need to perform surgery’ comment amid T20 World Cup 2024, the veteran has said as quoted by ESPN Cricinfo, “The problem is the selection committee has no pool to turn to from which to select players. I spoke of surgery because we need to fix our problems. But when we look at how to resolve them, we don’t have any solid data or player pool which we can draw from. The whole system was a mess. The Champions Cup will produce great talent, and we’ll have records for the games that happen. For surgery, you need all the tools to perform it.”

“This Cup will make domestic cricket strong, we’ll have a pool of 150 players, and then the surgery we need to be done, the selection committee will do. People said ‘do it all today, slit the throats of four-five players, and get rid of them’. You can’t dump someone unless you have a better one to replace them,” he again shared.

However, the abilities and fitness levels of Pakistan’s players have come under the scanner after the defeat to Bangladesh. The hosts’ top-order batters failed in both innings, while the bowlers bowledfor 167.3 overs in the first innings.

“Losing to Bangladesh is sad but the selection committee had given the team 17 players. If the coach or captain aren’t playing some of them, that’s their decision. The team management may have made a mistake, but that has nothing to do with the selection committee,” he concluded.