Thread by @AliNaqvi808

So how should we deal with this? Premeditated or not, the recent withdrawals have created a deep sense of frustration. Apart from emotional outbursts, how do we attain some ‘leverage’? We surely can, but we need to play to ‘our interest’ first 1/n

https://twitter.com/therealpcb/status/1440203670604320769

We are undoubtedly one of the most hospitable hosts & always step up to help others. But we need to realise that being nice to everyone without reciprocity doesn’t work
“ 🇵🇰 was the most hospitable place and people I visited. It has an incredible…” 2/n
euronews.com/travel/2021/09…

I think there are three ways in which we can have explicit/implicit leverage to ‘convince’ foreign teams not to abandon tours in: 1) Economic leverage, 2) Geopolitical leverage, 2) Domestic Cricket Leverage 3/n

1) Economic leverage - become economically so important that others can’t afford to antagonise you. There is unfortunately no short-term solution to it, so this can’t be used anytime soon (this requires a few threads on its own) 4/n

2) Geopolitical leverage - be on the right side of the impending divide (with the cricket playing nations). This doesn’t seem to be the case as pointed out in a separate thread yesterday. Also, unlike other sports like football, 5/n

Also, unlike other sports like football,
cricket is only played in a very small number of countries. So we don’t have a lot of choice. We cannot depend upon China or Russia playing top notch cricket anytime soon, can we :) 6/n

https://twitter.com/alinaqvi808/status/1439603259446992901?s=21

3) Commercially attractive domestic cricket - that’s the third option we have, and in my view the only option right now (and ofcourse staying engaged globally to bring foreign teams). While I am conflicted because of my financial interest in ISLU, let me still say 7/n

- PSL is the best GLOBAL PRODUCT Pakistan has produced in the past few decades. We need to make it so much bigger and more attractive that it becomes ‘unmissable’ by foreign players (and Boards). 8/n

How does PSL get around the above problems, you ask? It can because:
1 -PSL is already the 2nd largest league in the world
2 -A large number of foreign players have participated and really enjoyed the league, and therefore attracting them back to participate is not an issue. 9/n

3 - A large number of big names are ‘independent’ from their Boards and act accordingly
4 - because it is a ‘commercial’ league, interference from the Boards is less likely
5 - Quality of cricket is admittedly the best in the league circuit (as 👍 by foreign players too). 10/n

What we need to do is:
1-Focus back on PSL instead of taking it for granted, as has been the case for the past 3yrs
2-Solve the long pending issues between the Board & the Franchises
3-Convert PSL into a ‘National Festival’ - hold cultural/investment/Intl events around it 11/n

4 - Create curated events for players and their families

5 - Build curated ‘tourism’ packages for foreigners as well as Non Resident Pakistanis.

6 - Create a coordinated marketing campaign around it. 12/n

A financially successful PSL7 should allow us to make future seasons even bigger by adding more teams, may be a women’s edition, & may be integration with the domestic season/teams (& U19/16) which could be used as a feeder system to the PSL and ofcourse the national team.13/n

Time for us to grow up! These setbacks should be used to accelerate our growth, not our frustration.

Time to be our OWN friends first!

I believe Pakistan Cricket is at a pivotal point, hence the longest ever thread by me! 🙏🙏🇵🇰🇵🇰🚀🚀🏏🏏💪💪🦁🦁#UnitedWeWin 14/14