The PCB needs to realise that just lucking its way to talent isn’t enough – it has to take the investment needed to polish and realise their true potential.

If you live in any major city in the world, you would have probably come across Himalayan Pink Salt over the last few years. The specialty ingredient can be found everywhere from potato chips to bath spas, specialty chocolates to shot glasses. What you might not be aware of is that rather than the Himalayas per se, pink salt is mined from its toehills, in a place called the Salt Range in Pakistan’s Punjab province. But despite its global fame, local producers only see a fraction of the profits generated from this salt, because they mostly export it as a raw material which severely limits its value. Basically, Pakistan lacks the capacity to transform its own resource into the chic, smartly marketed exotic product that reaps big profits.

I couldn’t help but think of pink salt when I watched the mononym Razaullah script an audacious Test debut against England this week. Arriving almost as a LLM-generated cliche, Razaullah had the blistering pace, the booming movement, the luscious hair, and the boisterous appeals – all of which are as central to the idea of Pakistani cricket as a diminutive No.10 is to Argentine football. When he trapped Joe Root to pick up his first wicket, you could smell the excitement spreading across the Pakistani fandom.

A day later, Razaullah delivered the most scintillating of knocks, smashing sixes with the same sort of insouciance that Donald Trump has when renaming large bodies of water. Afterwards, when he was asked if he enjoyed his innings (during which he broke two bats!) he replied that the fans were meant to enjoy it instead. Pakistan fans, who had been left reeling after a tour from hell, might have forgotten what enjoyment even meant by now, but Razaullah’s entire match was the sort of respite they had spent a long time waiting for.

In the aftermath of that display, you could imagine Aaqib Javed leaning back and smiling with contentment. Aaqib was the architect of Pakistan’s Stalinist purge a week earlier, with half the team and all its coaches sent home. No one was spared – not interim captains nor Headingley heroes – and in true totalitarian fashion a couple of players were even investigated by federal agencies. But if you were part of a depressingly large number of fans who felt that those players were deadwood who needed to be replaced by hidden gems, then Razaullah’s performance was all the proof you needed.

However, if you follow Pakistan cricket, then you should obviously know better.

For starters, if you remove his sensational innings against a checked out team, you would notice that when it came to the main reason he was selected, Razaullah completely betrayed who he was - a young player with barely any first class experience. After that mythmaking over to Joe Root, Razaullah eventually ended up with one of the worst figures for a bowler in England. As much as his batting finally gave Pakistan something to fight with, his bowling was not just expensive but also undercooked, as his speeds consistently fell across the innings before settling in the low 80s that many of his colleagues find themselves stuck in.

Moreover, as exhilarating as Razaullah’s debut was, you don’t need an elephant’s memory to recall previous incantations of this very model, now discarded as wrecked heaps on the sidewalk. After all, if you wanted exciting, handsome pacers with popstar hair who could top 90mph and smash sixes, then Pakistan hasn’t had just one but two high-quality prospects that they have utterly destroyed in the last few years.

Take Shaheen Shah Afridi, once considered amongst the most exciting young players on the planet, armed with a fearsome yorker that evoked the greatest players of Pakistan’s past. Yet despite being only five years older than Razaullah, he already seems to be closer to the end of his career. Pakistan almost ran him into the ground right from his debut, playing him constantly in every format. When he eventually broke down with injury, the PCB didn’t even bother handling his rehab. News later broke of Shaheen staying at a motel in England on his own cost, arranging his own medical treatment. Even after his return, he has oscillated rapidly between either being named captain or being exiled from the squad. And after all this upheaval, not only has his pace mostly vanished, but he’s also struggled to regain the wicked swing that once defined him.

The other example is of Naseem Shah, who’s just two years older than Razaullah, and who arrived at the scene with the same level of acclaim as Shaheen. At the time, veteran Pakistani journalist Osman Samiuddin penned a letter to him, praying that he wouldn’t fall to the same litany of mismanaged injuries and insane workloads that had destroyed his predecessors. It turned out to be a sadly prescient piece of writing, as within a few years Naseem’s career was predictably blighted by injuries, selection follies and board fallouts. Tellingly, when the board made all its changes to the team last week, no one took his name or Shaheen’s as possible replacements.

Any other team would have looked to ensure that Naseem and Shaheen go on to lead their attack for another decade at least. Instead, Pakistan has cruelly recycled through them and many other promising players, continuously betraying a complete lack of process or foresight. Compare this sort of scandalous neglect with how Cricket Australia wrapped Pat Cummins in wool for much of his early career, or how the BCCI fastidiously restricts Jasprit Bumrah’s playing time. While the best teams treat their fast bowlers like state assets that are carefully managed and protected, the PCB seems to treat them like single-use napkins.

If Aaqib Javed were reading this, he would correctly point out that these two examples are from before his time, and indeed rather than focusing on the clownery emanating from the current board, it is obvious that this sort of mismanagement has been baked into the system for years now. Pakistan hasn’t produced a pacer with 200 wickets this century, but that is also part of a broader malaise – only one bowler of any sort has even played 50 Tests during this time period. Any attempt at laying the blame on the current regime alone should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Given that we are back to salt again, it is instructive to look at the case of Pakistan’s pink salt. In 2019, there had been online campaigns and politicians’ speeches about taking ownership of pink salt and its earning potential. The fury led to media coverage and revamped government plans, but almost a decade later the progress is noticeable but painfully slow. Local exports have increased, but major investments are needed in upskilling the producers, developing business contacts, and upgrading the branding in order to make a mark globally.

It is a clear reminder that developing such resources requires time, patience, investment and most importantly, a clear vision. Just because you happened upon a salt mine doesn’t mean you’ll immediately start selling at Trader Joe’s.

Similarly, just because Razaullah picked up skipper Joe doesn’t mean that Pakistan is suddenly a quality team once again. It is important to remember that realising the pacer’s potential would require even greater levels of backing and commitment that Pakistan has belatedly brought to its salt mines. The PCB needs to realise that just lucking its way to talent isn’t enough – it has to take the investment needed to polish and realise their true potential. The way forward isn’t via headline-grabbing, shock-inducing selection culls, but rather through a slow, methodical process that values the resources at hand. Otherwise, such hasty, reckless decisions will only end up salting any possible hope.

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