Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Mohsin Naqvi slammed the critics of the Pakistan team after their losses to England in the first 2 Tests, saying that the naysayers who are criticizing the team ‘have never achieved anything in their lives”.

“You used to be ranked eighth in ODIs, which has now gone up to fifth. You have had six ODI series, out of which you have won four, but still, our cricket is finished? Our success rate has gone up from 24 per cent to 73 per cent, and I’m not talking about just one or the other specific match, but still, our cricket is finished?” he said to media in London as per PTI.

“Those players who have never achieved anything in their lives, when they talk along these lines, that’s unreasonable. Sometimes there are mistakes made in selection as well. I am answerable for that, and we need to work on it,” he said, adding that sometimes it was necessary to remove players if they do not perform.

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Since Pakistan’s loss in the second Test vs England, the team has been plunged into chaos with seven players and two coaches being sent home midway through the series, a senior selector resigning in protest, and Pakistan’s own director of high performance going on television to defend the decision his own committee had made.

Recently, speaking to Geo News, Aaqib Javed, the PCB’s director of high performance and a member of the selection committee, had mounted a direct defence of the overhaul, arguing the team’s inability to compete, not the original squad selection, had forced the board’s hand.

“When we select a team, we sit with the coach and captain and build a squad. We are absolutely prepared to take responsibility for that squad,” he said. “But when you go on tour, you have to make the kind of combination you need from match to match.” He said he had personally told captain Babar Azam and the coaching staff before the Lord’s Test to play fast bowler Ubaid Shah, since Pakistan’s other three seamers were all similarly paced, and argued the team should also have picked wicketkeeper Ghazi Ghori ahead of Rizwan. “No batter in our top seven bowls,” he said. “One fast bowler changes the composition of your attack.”