Pakistan’s greatest sporting tragedy is not the absence of talent. It is the habit of forcing talent to survive without a system, then calling survival a national achievement. When a Pakistani athlete conquers the world, the country treats it as proof of national greatness. More often, it is proof of individual defiance against institutions that should have prepared, protected and carried that athlete long before the final throw, race or match. That distinction matters because it exposes the central failure. Serious sporting nations do not wait for miracles; they build pipelines that make excellence repeatable. Pakistan builds excuses, press releases and victory receptions after the fact.

Every few years, an exceptional individual breaks through—a Jahangir Khan, a Jansher Khan, an Arshad Nadeem—and the country mistakes personal defiance for national achievement. We wrap ourselves in their glory, then abandon the institutions that should be producing hundreds more. Their victories become emotional cover for institutional failure: the athlete succeeds, the system fails, and Pakistan celebrates the athlete so it does not have to confront the failure.

Pakistan has more than 240 million people and one of the youngest populations in the world. Demographics alone should make it a deep reservoir of athletic talent. Instead, the country sends tiny contingents to global competitions and treats qualification itself as an achievement. The reason is not mysterious. It is decades of decay, denial and mismanagement.

Sport in Pakistan has never been treated as a national development strategy. It has been treated as a photo opportunity. Governments appear after victories with cheques, speeches and promises, but disappear when school grounds need maintenance, coaches need training and federations need reform. Too many sports bodies are captured by politics, patronage and personal fiefdoms. Funding, where it exists, is rarely tied to performance, transparency or consequences. Cricket, at the moment, has become an ongoing national ordeal, repeatedly raising public hopes only to leave them bruised. But even this cycle of disappointment should not become an excuse to........

© The Friday Times