'Gone Back 10 Years' — Ajmal Names the Two Men He Says Destroyed Pakistan Cricket

Most former cricketers who criticise the Pakistan Cricket Board do it in code. They "express concern." They say "the system needs reform." They throw out passive-voice disappointment and move on. Saeed Ajmal, the 48-year-old former off-spinner who once sat atop the ICC ODI bowling rankings, is not interested in code.

Speaking to Samaa TV after the PCB's mid-tour purge during the England series, Ajmal pointed his finger directly at two men: Director of High Performance Aaqib Javed and interim Test coach Mike Hesson.

"Aaqib Javed and Mike Hesson are a team," Ajmal said. "These two are controlling everything and are responsible for this whole mess. The whole issue is about egos."

Not the system. Not the culture. Not vague institutional dysfunction. Two specific men. Their egos. Their control. That's remarkably specific for Pakistani cricket commentary, where criticising the wrong person at the wrong time can get you blacklisted from the entire ecosystem.

Ajmal's accusation isn't random. It maps onto the decision-making structure the PCB built after Mohsin Naqvi took over as chairman. Aaqib Javed was installed as Director of High Performance — a role that effectively controls selection policy, coaching appointments, and player management. Hesson was hired as white-ball coach but has now been elevated to run the Test team as well, despite having zero red-ball involvement with Pakistan before this week.

What Ajmal is alleging is that these two men have consolidated power to the point where they're making sweeping decisions — sacking coaches, dropping seven players mid-tour, confiscating phones — without meaningful pushback from anyone else in the system. When the chief selector (Misbah-ul-Haq) resigned in protest and said the selections were "cosmetic surgery," he was confirming what Ajmal is saying from the outside: the decisions are coming from a closed loop.

Sarfaraz Ahmed, the head coach who was sacked after the Lord's defeat, reportedly had little say in the squad. Misbah quit because he felt overruled. Noffke, the bowling coach, got a 3am message telling him to fly to England. The picture Ajmal paints — of two men running everything — is consistent with every other account that's come out of this tour.

When Saeed Ajmal talks about the PCB humiliating its own players, he's not speaking in the abstract. He's speaking from scar tissue.

In 2014, Ajmal was the best ODI spinner on the planet. He had 178 wickets in 113 ODIs at an average of 22.72 and an economy of 4.18. He was ranked No. 1 in the ICC ODI bowling rankings. Then his action was reported, he was suspended, and he was forced to remodel his entire bowling technique. The doosra that had made him lethal — the delivery that batsmen couldn't read — was taken away from him.

He came back with a remodeled action, but he was never the same bowler. The PCB's support through that process was, by most accounts, minimal. He played his last international in 2015 and retired in 2017, his career effectively ended at 37 by a system that used him when he was useful and discarded him when he wasn't.

So when Ajmal says "the board has demotivated the players more than anyone else" and "there are players who have been humiliated by the PCB," he's drawing on personal experience that most commentators don't have.

Ajmal's most damning line is also his simplest: "Our team has gone back 10 years. We have not planned for the future."

Ten years ago, in 2016, Pakistan were building something under Mickey Arthur. They won the Champions Trophy in 2017. They had a fast-bowling factory producing Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, and Haris Rauf. They had a batting lineup anchored by Babar Azam. They had an identity — chaotic, unpredictable, but dangerous.

What do they have now? A Test team that's been bowled out for 110 at Lord's. A coaching setup where the head coach is a white-ball specialist who didn't pick the squad. A selection panel that just lost its chairman. And an upcoming Test at Edgbaston with five uncapped players in a series already lost 2-0.

Ajmal's "10 years" isn't hyperbole. Pakistan are fielding an experimental squad in a dead rubber, coached by men who were supposed to be preparing for the Asian Games, with their best players either sent home or under investigation. The planning deficit he's describing is structural. There is no pipeline. There is no long-term vision. There are egos, panic, and reactions.

The third Test at Edgbaston begins today, September 9th. England are chasing a 3-0 whitewash. Pakistan are trying to avoid their worst series defeat in England since 2010. And yet the conversation around this match has nothing to do with cricket.

It's about phone confiscations. About a selector quitting. About a coach who got a 3am text message. About a bowling legend going on TV and naming the two men he says are responsible for burning the whole thing down. About egos.

Ajmal might be wrong about the specifics — maybe Aaqib Javed and Hesson aren't the only architects of this disaster. But his broader point is devastating and, crucially, consistent with what every other voice has said this week: the PCB is an organisation that reacts to failure with purges rather than plans, that punishes players for systemic failures, and that has no idea what Pakistani Test cricket is supposed to look like anymore.

When a man whose own career was destroyed by the system tells you the system is broken, the question isn't whether he's biased. The question is whether anyone with power is listening.