Pakistan cricket insider launches explosive attack on players’ professionalism, agenda-driven journalists and PCB

Pakistan cricket insider launches explosive attack on players' professionalism, agenda-driven journalists and PCB originally appeared on Cricket News. Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Multan Sultans owner Gohar Shah delivered a sweeping critique of Pakistan cricket.

He questioned players' professionalism, journalists' agendas, and the PCB's bureaucracy.

Shah also argued PSL owners have no incentive to grow their franchises.

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Multan Sultans owner Gohar Shah is done with Pakistan and PCB

Pakistan cricket rarely wants for outside criticism, but it is less common for the sharpest assessment to come from within the tent. Gohar Shah, the owner of Pakistan Super League franchise Multan Sultans, has published a lengthy and unsparing breakdown of what he believes ails the game, touching almost every stakeholder in it.

Shah, who bought the franchise through CD Ventures in early 2026 and has quickly established a reputation for plain speaking, framed his intervention as an honest duty rather than an attack. His comments arrive with Pakistan cricket already reeling from a 2-0 series defeat in England and a chaotic mid-tour overhaul of squad and coaching staff.

Prefacing his remarks by acknowledging they might land him in trouble, Shah said he owed the game an honest assessment, having been a fan before he was a stakeholder.

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Gohar Shah questions players' professionalism

The first target was the players themselves, with Shah drawing on his time around the dressing room to question their commitment to the standards the modern game demands. He acknowledged the difficulty of long tours while insisting the word had to carry meaning.

"Late nights and junk food are common. Now I understand living on hotel food and being stuck for 6 weeks is tough, but the word professional has to mean something," Shah wrote.

He was also quick pointed out specific on-field failings, arguing that a reluctance to do the hard work had become a mentality problem. "No one wants to do the tough yards. Like for instance a few times in the test match after a long spell the pace bowlers didn't run after the ball. What are you saving your legs for? The test match ended in 2.5 days," he wrote.

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Shah reserved particular concern for the fast bowlers, suggesting fear of injury and the lure of T20 contracts had cost them their pace. "They are so scared of being injured and losing their T20 gigs. You have to train to bowl fast to be able to bowl fast. And fast bowling is painful," he wrote.

But the players weren't the only target of his criticism. He took his time to address journalists as well.

MORE: Pakistan's head coach and captain merry-go-round: Are the players scapegoats?

Shah takes aim at journalists and former players

Sports journalists perhaps took the most cutting remarks from Shah. He credited their growth with bringing fans closer to the team's inner workings, but argued the field had rotted from within, writing that "the bad eggs took over and they also corrupted the good eggs."

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He accused reporters of pushing personal agendas and building narratives around those who served their interests.

"They build narratives on who they like, who caters for them more, i.e these things may or may not be leaks, gifts, favours," Shah wrote, before questioning where their loyalties lay. "They may or may not be loyal to Pakistan. It's only about their views, content, income. They may or may not be the scummiest of all stakeholders."

Former players were criticised more gently, though Shah still felt most had chosen the easy path. "Barring a few who actually worked and got their coaching badges and qualifications most find it more comfortable to go on tv and just iterate the problems," he wrote.

"No one presents the solutions nor goes out there and gets the experience. They all may or may not want things on a platter, without doing the hard yards to become better coaches,"he continued.

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Why Shah says the PCB and PSL structure are broken

Turning to the board, Shah described an organisation paralysed by bureaucracy and fear. "Everyone fears to speak their mind because they worry about backlash and their jobs. There are people that genuinely wanted to help, but when they see their efforts go nowhere they stop trying and just settle for their paycheck," he wrote.

Notably, he declined to blame the chairman directly, instead identifying the board's over-reliance on the role. "The chairman is not the problem," Shah wrote, adding that in his experience "a good leader needs good advisors."

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His final grievance concerned the incentives for PSL owners like himself. "10 year lease, you grow the brand, only to give it back to the PCB. So why would you grow if you see none of the benefit? Only the bills," he wrote. "You invest in players and talent hunts only to lose them due to retention rules and category changes that are agenda driven."

MORE: Has any team made drastic changes to their squad in the middle of a series before?

Why Shah's critique carries weight despite its scattergun nature

There is an obvious tension in a franchise owner publicly savaging almost every part of the ecosystem he operates within, and some will read self-interest into his complaints about retention rules and lease structures. His running "may or may not" disclaimer also allows him to make serious allegations while retaining deniability.

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Yet much of what he says aligns with criticism from more neutral voices. Journalists from other cricketing nations have made similar points about Pakistan's grassroots and batting failings, and the mid-tour collapse in England lent Shah's timing an uncomfortable credibility.

His observation that fear of injury has diluted Pakistan's fast bowling speaks to a genuine tension in the franchise era. Whether a stakeholder airing this so publicly helps or merely adds to the noise is debatable.

What is not in doubt is that Shah has articulated, from the inside, frustrations that many around Pakistan cricket have long voiced privately. The harder question, which his post does not fully answer, is who exactly is positioned to fix any of it.

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