Mohsin Naqvi Showed Up For Drama And Ran From Defeat
Mohsin Naqvi did not walk into the Pakistan team environment before the India match as a cricket administrator. He walked in as a spectacle. And like most spectacles, it worked perfectly until reality began.
The build-up to the match had already been inflated far beyond sport. There was talk of boycott threats, political signalling and statements escalating the contest into a national posture exercise. Senior figures weighed in, turning what should have been a cricket fixture into a matter of state optics. And then, under legal and tournament obligations, the stance softened and the match went ahead anyway. By the time the players reached the ground, they were not just carrying bat and ball. They were carrying a narrative.
Into that environment arrived the PCB chairman and serving Interior Minister late at night at the team hotel. Practice stopped feeling like preparation and started resembling inspection. Players weren’t just thinking about line and length anymore. They were thinking about posture, protocol and presence. The dressing room shifted from a professional workspace to a ceremonial corridor where acknowledgement mattered more than focus.
This is what happens when sport is treated as a stage for authority rather than a domain for professionals. Elite athletes operate best in controlled isolation. Routine steadies them. Instead, hierarchy was introduced hours before a rivalry that already carried enormous psychological weight. The team did not need another layer of expectation. It received one anyway.
Had Pakistan won, the symbolism would have been irresistible. Photographs and proximity would have implied influence. That is the appeal of political visibility around sport. Victory becomes collective. Defeat becomes selective.
And defeat arrived quickly.
Then came the defining act. During the collapse, the chairman reportedly left after the sixth wicket. Not at the end. Not after backing the side publicly. Midway. The same figure who commanded attention before the first ball was no longer present when the scoreboard demanded solidarity.
Nothing exposes leadership faster than contrast. Presence before pressure, absence during pressure. The message does not require interpretation.
Cricket teams notice these things. Players do not remember speeches. They remember behaviour. They remember who sits through uncomfortable overs and who suddenly has somewhere else to be. Confidence does not come from authority figures appearing before a game. Confidence comes from knowing the system around you will not disappear when things go wrong.
Instead, the match became another example of cricket pulled into a political circus. The pre-match environment suggested posturing, the match produced collapse, and the exit suggested detachment. Administrators stepping into the spotlight transform a sporting contest into a symbolic contest. When the symbol fails, the athletes carry the embarrassment alone.
Modern boards succeed by staying invisible. The quieter the administrators, the calmer the dressing room. Here the opposite philosophy prevailed. Visibility was prioritised over stability. Optics over environment. Pressure multiplied internally before the opposition even needed to apply it.
Pakistan’s cricket problems are not created by one visit or one exit. But moments like this deepen the perception that players are forced to perform under expectations unrelated to cricket. Rivals, crowd and history already exist. Authority theatre should not.
If leadership wants to share the front row when victory is possible, it must also occupy the same seat when defeat becomes inevitable. Otherwise the role stops being stewardship and starts becoming performance art. And international sport is unforgiving toward performance art.
