Three reasons for Pakistan's struggle as an ODI team

Gone are the days when captain Inzamam-Ul-Haq lead the Pakistani cricket team from the front, gone are the days when Younus Khan and Mohammed Yousuf provided stability in the middle order, gone are the days when Misbah-Ul-Haq or Shahid Afridi came on and finished the things in style and gone are the days when people used to fear the men in green. In 2017, when captain Sarfraz Ahmed lead his team to a stunning upset victory over the Indian national team in the ICC Champions Trophy, it finally looked like Pakistan was getting back on track as their last major highlight was becoming the number one test team in the world in 2016.

Things, however, have not clicked this year and from the sixth position, Pakistan have fallen back to seventh place, just ahead of West Indies and Bangladesh. In terms of the cricket games too, victories have just not come into their stride with the team facing tragic losses early on in the year against New Zealand and even though they performed well enough against Zimbabwe, India has given them a brutal reality check in the Asia Cup by inflicting two humiliating losses. It does seem like 2017 has been put far away and the hurt is back for the Pakistani fans but there are reasons as to why the team is struggling in this format :

---

1) Lack of Confidence

The biggest testimony to this is their coach Mickey Arthur himself. Dubbing the recent loss over India as one of the worst in the country's history, Mickey Arthur went on to use the words "confidence crisis". For a team that already began the year with a crushing set of defeats against a very good New Zealand team, it was evident that confidence wouldn't really be that high and even though expectations might have risen after Zimbabwe, India would have crushed it completely.

The "fear of losing again" were the set of words used from the coach himself and such a state in the dressing team usually leads to panic and it needs players with some really good leadership skills to prevent a complete fall-out and failure.

2) Leadership and inexperience

As the Pakistan Cricket Board lead by Inzamam-Ul-Haq announced the team for the Asia Cup from Lahore after consultations with Sarfraz Ahmed and the coach Mickey Arthur, it was not difficult to notice that the team lacked a fair bit of experience for such a big tournament. Pakistan are a developing team with only Sarfraz and Mohammad Amir reaching 50 caps behind Shoaib Malik's 200 caps.

Pakistan have lost a major set of leaders due to retirement in the past half-decade with notable figures being Misbah-ul-Haq, Younus Khan and Shahid Afridi. Moreover, at such a stage for a developing team, it's clear that they will struggle until the transition phase is complete and the side learns to get along by knowing the strengths and the weaknesses.

Leadership and experience are vital for any team and the biggest example can be how the Indian team itself transferred the power smoothly from MS Dhoni to Virat Kohli and still marched ahead to find the rhythm and consistency. Until Pakistan gets this sorted, this will be one of the reasons for their struggle.

3) The disadvantage of being away from home and it's impact

Ever since Pakistan was made to adopt UAE as their home nation, it's impacted a lot of things which usually do not get noticed. Firstly, for any side's confidence, the home games are important because they really serve as a morale-booster. It's not only the familiarity with the conditions and the experience they derive but it is also the home-support that goes a long way psychologically.

Secondly, the finances do get cut-short and the board doesn't really derive a lot of revenue with the adopted home-venue being outside the country. The allocation of funds then does not happen properly and neither does the distribution and the third reason is directly linked with that of the second. Due to lack of revenue or investments, the grass-roots level gets affected and the country fails to produce a lot of talent as it did for more than two decades. If Pakistan has to improve, such issues deserve attention and addressing.