'I don't know how to defend': Helpless Ramiz Raja reacts to the turmoil in current Pakistan cricket team

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'I don't know how to defend': Helpless Ramiz Raja reacts to the turmoil in current Pakistan cricket team originally appeared on Cricket News. Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS:

  • Ramiz Raja said he did not know how to defend Pakistan's current turmoil.
  • He sympathised with Babar Azam, saying the captain learned of changes from media reports.
  • The comments came after seven players and two coaches were sent home mid-tour.

Ramiz Raja shows his regret for Pakistan as the team continues to spiral downwards

Pakistan's chaotic response to their series defeat in England has left even their most seasoned commentators struggling for words.

Ramiz Raja, no stranger to defending difficult decisions during his own time as PCB chairman, admitted on BBC's Test Match Special that this situation was beyond justification.

The exchange came after seven players, including Mohammad Rizwan, Imam-ul-Haq and Salman Ali Agha, were sent home mid-tour, with head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and bowling coach Umar Gul also removed and replaced by Mike Hesson ahead of the dead-rubber third Test at Edgbaston.

A TMS reporter put the scale of the upheaval to Raja directly, prompting a response notable for its lack of the usual institutional defensiveness.

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What Ramiz Raja said about Pakistan's turmoil

Asked whether this episode surpassed even Pakistan cricket's familiar volatility, the reporter did not hold back. "You are used to a bit of upheaval in your part of the world as far as cricket is concerned, but this, this about, takes the biscuit, doesn't it?" they said.

Raja's response carried an unusual note of resignation for a figure who has spent years defending the board from the outside and, at times, from within it. "I mean, unprecedented, really. I don't know how to defend this because you can't; it's unfortunate. But the situation is before you, and I just hope that the players are mentally in sync with what needs to be done," he said.

He reserved particular sympathy for Babar Azam, who returned to the Test captaincy only before the tour of the West Indies and has now had to lead a squad reshaped without his input. "It's going to be a tough gig for Babar Azam. He probably didn't know what was happening around him as well. And for a captain, really, to hear the news from relatives and from media, it's just demoralising," Raja said.

Azam was recovering from a fever after the disastrous Lord's Test when he came to know that seven of his teammates, including Mohammad Rizwan and Imam-ul-Haq, had been sent home. To make such a radical decision, without even informing Azam, PCB once again proved that perhaps the cricketing board is the biggest detractor of their players.

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Why Raja's admission carries particular weight

Raja is not a neutral observer of Pakistan cricket governance. As PCB chairman between 2021 and 2022, he was sacked himself following a home Test whitewash to England, and he has spent much of his broadcasting career since defending or critiquing decisions from a position of institutional familiarity rather than outside distance.

That history is precisely what makes this admission notable. A man who has previously found ways to rationalise pitch strategies, captaincy changes and selection calls, saying he has no defence, signals just how far outside normal bounds this reshuffle sits, even by Pakistan cricket's own volatile standards.

His point about Babar learning of the changes through relatives and media, rather than through the board itself, also lands as a serious governance failure rather than a mere communication lapse. A captain discovering the composition of his own squad from outside channels suggests the PCB's internal processes broke down as badly as the results that triggered the reshuffle in the first place.

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