Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has promised Pakistani-Americans that he is working on a plan to develop the “best cricket team of the world” following the country’s debacle in the recently-concluded ICC World Cup in the UK.
Addressing a large crowd at a community event atWashington’s Capital One Arena on Sunday, the cricketer-turned-politician saida ‘Naya Pakistan’ was being created in front of people’s eyes.
“People ask ‘Where is Naya Pakistan?’ it is beingcreated in front of your eyes,” he said.
Referring to the poor show of the Pakistani team in therecently-concluded ICC World Cup cricket tournament, Khan said he had”started working on developing the best cricket team of the world in thenext tournament, by bringing the best players in the team”.
“Remember my words,” said the prime minister, wholed Pakistan to victory at the 1992 Cricket World Cup.
Khan is currently on a three-day visit to the US and isscheduled to meet President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.
He had given some pep talk to the country’s cricket teamahead of their duel against India in the crucial ICC Cricket World Cup match onJune 16, saying the fear of losing leads to a negative and defensive strategy.
Pakistan, which lost the match against India, could not makeit to the semi-finals and finished fifth in the tournament that was won byEngland for the first time.
Former chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board NajamSethi hasblamed the present management of the board for the national team’s poor show inthe World Cup.
“I have played cricket all around the world. I haveseen the most cricketing talent in Pakistan. But [because] there is no systemof merit, we can’t bring that talent up. This is why we are not dominating theworld [in cricket] because there is no meritocracy,” Khan said.
PM Imran said that America had succeeded thanks to a systembased on meritocracy, through which good leaders replaced bad ones.
He regretted that in Pakistan there was a “type ofmonarchy” and merit did not come into play in the country.
“A society that doesn’t have merit, doesn’t goforward,” Khan
The premier said that the second factor that took democracyforward was leaders being held accountable.
“Democracy is successful when the leadership isanswerable.”
Khan said that the form of socialism in place during the1970s had led to industrial growth in the country stopping and then after 1985,bribery came into politics when the “real damage” took place.
“We saw Pakistan go down before our eyes,” hesaid.”Remember this is the time that Pakistanwill change, it is changing before you… Our country will rise before you. Youwill see we will fix the system and let the lower segment come up,” hesaid.