'You could make three teams in 2018' - Pakistan cricketer believes new domestic structure is hurting their depth

Pakistan Cricket Team (Source: Twitter)

Pakistan wicketkeeper batter Kamran Akmal feels that changing the domestic cricket circuit is backfiring Pakistan cricket. Akmal believes that the move to stop the participation of departmental teams and regional cricket has drastically affected their bench strength and is hurting their depth.

The 41-year-old claimed that they should learn from their arch-rivals India who can form two or three teams with the depth that they have. He feels Pakistan are struggling to form a proper team because of the dearth of talent of form.

The wicketkeeper-batter reckons that not many players have the exposure and mental toughness to play at the international level.

"(On whether Pakistan too can form 2 teams) Pehle aap ek to bana lein thik se (First at least make one team properly). Before 2018-19, you could have made three teams due to the number of teams that were playing domestic and regional cricket,” was quoted as saying by Paktv.tv

He claimed that Pakistan had several great players in the past due to their old domestic structure. He believes departmental cricket played a massive role in the talent that was previously available within the national team.

"Departmental teams have given Pakistan so many great players, but we stopped that and have just six domestic teams. If this experiment had been correct, then Fawad Alam wouldn't have had to wait 11 years to make a comeback. We are finding it difficult to form one proper team,” he added.

Indians play long cricket: Kamran Akmal

He further explained how Pakistan should develop the character of the younger generation by taking India’s example once again. The wicketkeeper-batter believes this should take place starting from the junior level so that they become ready for the international level when the time arrives.

"I talk about India because if you see the top four players who have scored most hundreds in the past 10-12 years, three of them are from India. So they play long cricket and that's what should be our focus too. We will need to mentally prepare our players and make them stronger and this should now happen from age-group cricket,” he further said.