Pakistan’s tour of England has been grim. Rashid Latif believes the real crisis runs far deeper than a misfiring batting line-up.
In the wake of Pakistan’s 194-run defeat to England at Lord’s on Sunday, a loss that sealed the series 2-0 with a Test to spare, the former wicketkeeper-batter launched a blistering attack on the Pakistan Cricket Board, its selection committee and the coaching staff. For Latif, this is not just a bad tour. It is the product of years of mismanagement.
Worst in 70 years
As the post-mortem gathered pace and British pundits labelled this “the worst Pakistan side in the last 50 years”, Latif did not rush to shield the players. He simply widened the lens.
“Everyone is talking about the Pakistan team, and how it is the worst touring team in the last 50 years. But nobody is speaking about how the current board is the worst in the last 70 years. Nobody is talking about the worst selection committee and coaches,” he said on Geo News.
Then he drove the point home.
“If you combine these issues, you will get the answer to your question. You will know who has ruined this team. Now you are losing consistently. This is the worst cricket board, that's a fact.”
It was not a passing criticism. It was an indictment.
Batting in freefall
The numbers on this tour back up the anger.
Across the first two Tests, Pakistan have not once crossed 200 in an innings. In modern Test cricket, that is not just poor. It is non-competitive.
The batting has disintegrated under sustained English pressure, exposing technical flaws and mental frailties. Every collapse has fed the next, every low score tightening the noose around a side already short of belief.
Babar Azam’s return at Lord’s was supposed to steady things. He missed the opening Test, and his comeback was framed as a chance to restore order at the top. Instead, it only underlined how deep the problems run.
He managed just 8 and 6.
His second-innings dismissal captured his struggles in a few seconds of chaos. Jofra Archer dug in a sharp short ball, Babar misjudged it, and the leading batter of his generation in Pakistan walked off again, leaving a fragile dressing room even more exposed.
When your best player looks short of answers, the rest of the line-up tends to follow.
Turmoil off the field
All of this unfolded against a tense backdrop.
The Lord’s Test carried an off-field storm after Sky Sports aired an 18-minute interview with Imran Khan’s sons, focusing on the former Pakistan captain and prime minister’s imprisonment. The broadcast stirred political and emotional sensitivities back home.
Reports quickly emerged that the PCB had threatened to pull Pakistan out of the Test over the interview. The story added another layer of drama to a tour already weighed down by scrutiny.
Both Babar Azam and head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed moved to shut that down, denying that Pakistan had considered withdrawing from the match. Whatever the truth of the internal discussions, the noise around the team refused to die.
On the field, England pressed ruthlessly. Off it, Pakistan looked like a setup permanently on the defensive.
A dead rubber with real stakes
Now comes Edgbaston.
The third and final Test in Birmingham starts on September 9. The series is gone, England already 2-0 up, but the stakes for Pakistan remain brutal. A 3-0 whitewash would not just be a statistic; it would be a symbol of a side and a system in freefall.
Latif’s words will hang over the build-up. His claim that this is “the worst cricket board” Pakistan have had in 70 years strikes at the very top of the game’s hierarchy in the country. The players will walk out in Birmingham knowing that, for many watching, they are no longer the main culprits.
They still have one Test to change the mood, if not the narrative. The question now is whether this group can find enough resolve to fight back on the field while the fire rages around them off it.
