Letter to the President

To the President of Pakistan,

We, the supporters of Pakistan cricket, demand an immediate end to the systematic destruction of Pakistan cricket.

Cricket is the single-most visible embodiment of the aspirations of the global Pakistani nation. Our cricketers are the most visible ambassadors of an embattled country. Cricket fans are representative of every walk of Pakistani society. The history of Pakistan as a nation and a cricket team is intertwined, and some might say cricket is a mirror reflecting the state of the nation.

We care about the present and the future of Pakistan cricket because we care about the present and the future of Pakistan itself.

Successive regimes of the Pakistan Cricket Board, under the patronage of the President of Pakistan, have indulged in nepotism, cronyism, and financial mismanagement, to name a few misdemeanours. The cricket board has been run unprofessionally in an age of professional international sport. Decision-making has been for the benefit of the individuals representing the cricket board rather than for the national cricket team or the hundreds of millions of cricket fans from all countries who support the Pakistan cricket team.

The result of this systematic mismanagement has been the isolation of Pakistan cricket from the international cricket community and the destruction of Pakistan as a force in the world of cricket. The Pakistan cricket team once made us proud, it is now the starkest example of how to waste the natural abilities, talents, and resources of the Pakistani people.

We demand that cricket does not follow squash and hockey, sports that we once dominated. Instead, we demand that the current cricket board of amateurs is disbanded and replaced by professionals fit to run a 21st century international sports organisation.

We demand that the current crop of exciting players, like Mohammad Aamer and Umar Akmal, has the hope of playing in a national team that makes Pakistan cricket great again and the supporters proud.

We demand that cricket puts its house in order and becomes a shining example of how to revitalise a Pakistani institution.

We demand that the patience of millions is rewarding with action.

As your predecessors knew, the success of the team is also a judgment on the success of your presidency.

Save Pakistan cricket.

Dil Dil Pakistan.

(If you support this letter, join the Facebook group/petition I've set up called 'A million people to save Pakistan cricket." Follow this link)