Wasim Akram has seen enough. Pakistan’s greatest fast bowler cut through the air of denial in Lahore and went straight for the heart of the problem: in Test cricket, Pakistan are drifting, and the batting cupboard, in his view, is bare.
The recent home-and-away Test series defeats to Bangladesh, he argued, should have triggered a full-scale reset. Instead, he sees a system that shrugged and carried on.
“That series loss should have been a warning,” was the clear message. For Akram, it wasn’t.
PSL under the microscope
The Pakistan Super League is a point of pride for the country. It has been running for a decade, has unearthed bowlers, created stars, filled stadiums and screens. Yet Akram looked at the league from a different angle and asked the question few in power seem willing to confront.
It has been 10 years. Has it produced a single batter of genuine Test quality?
He acknowledged that PSL has given Pakistan a steady flow of bowlers. But when it comes to batting talent stepping into the national side and changing the conversation, he sees a void. No “noteworthy batting talent,” as he put it, has emerged from a tournament that dominates the domestic calendar.
For a man who spent his life hunting top-order players, the irony is hard to miss: Pakistan keep finding men to bowl the ball, but not enough who can stand there and face it.
A teenage prodigy across the border
To underline his point, Akram turned to an example from across the border. He referenced the emergence of a 15-year-old batting prodigy in India, an apparent nod to Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, as the type of talent Pakistan are failing to unearth.
“I think when we produce a batting talent like the 14-year old then we will see improvement coming through,” he said, using that image of a teenage sensation to expose a gap in Pakistan’s own system.
White-ball cricket, he admitted, remains competitive. Pakistan can still live with the best in the shorter formats. Test cricket is another story. He did not dress it up. He called the state of Pakistan’s red-ball game “bad.”
Coach debate dismissed
While debate rages over who should coach Pakistan next, Akram poured cold water on the idea that a new man in the dugout is any kind of magic solution.
Whether it is him, Gary Kirsten, or anyone else, he argued, the coach inherits the same pool of players and the same structural flaws. Changing the face on the dressing-room door means little if the conveyor belt beneath remains broken.
His prescription was blunt: stop chopping and changing, and give the domestic structure time. Let it breathe. Let it run for three to four years. Plan, wait, and then judge.
Akram made it clear he feels the same hurt as any supporter watching Pakistan stumble in Tests. This is not detached analysis. It is frustration from someone who knows what a strong Pakistan side looks like and does not recognise what he is seeing now.
“Revive club cricket”
For Akram, the roots of the crisis sit far below the international stage. Club cricket, he insisted, must be revived if Pakistan are serious about red-ball improvement.
He did not speak in vague terms. He called on the PCB to spend 100 million rupees each in Karachi and Lahore, cities he sees as major talent hubs, precisely because that talent comes from clubs, not from short-term fixes or cosmetic reforms.
His criticism extended to selection habits as well. Pakistan, he said, keep rotating players, shuffling names in and out of the side, but never truly addressing the core problems. The faces change. The issues remain.
There should be consistency in the team, he argued, yet the same players “just keep coming and going,” never allowed to settle, never asked to build something lasting.
Technical failings exposed in England
The ongoing Test series in England only sharpened his concerns. From Akram’s vantage point, Pakistan’s batters have been technically and mentally short against England’s attack.
He highlighted one basic flaw: the front foot. Against bowlers like Ollie Robinson, he said, Pakistan’s batters stood rooted in the crease, refusing to move forward, inviting trouble in conditions that demand courage and decisive footwork.
You need courage to bat in England. But courage, in his view, must sit on a foundation of talent and sound basics. Without that, bravery becomes recklessness, and the scoreboard tells its own story.
Pace is not just a speed gun
When the conversation turned to Pakistan’s fast-bowling stocks, Akram again pushed back against superficial judgments. One ball at 150 km/h means nothing to him if a bowler cannot hold 140 km/h across a full day.
He warned against the rush to crown every new quick as the next great hope. Let them play, he urged. Let them learn. Judge them only after they have survived the grind, not after a highlight reel of a few thunderbolts.
Shaheen, Akif and the road not taken
Shaheen Afridi inevitably entered the discussion. Akram described him as an experienced bowler and admitted he did not know why Shaheen’s pace has dipped. Even so, he felt a player of that experience should have been in England for the current series.
He also named Akif Javed as someone he would have liked to see in those conditions. “If it were up to me, I would have asked for Akif Javed, as he bowled well recently in England,” Akram said, hinting at a missed opportunity to test a bowler who had already shown promise there.
A call to fix the roots, not the leaves
Akram’s words land at a time of rising anxiety around Pakistan’s Test future and the quality of players emerging from the domestic system. His message cut through the noise: stop obsessing over quick fixes and personalities, and start repairing the foundation.
He wants money at club level, patience with domestic structures, clarity in selection, and a serious plan to produce batters who can stand up in the toughest format.
Until Pakistan can point to their own teenage batting phenomenon, until their top order can stride forward in places like England instead of freezing on the crease, the questions he raised in Lahore will not go away.
