What has gone wrong for Pakistan cricket with 'alarm bells ringing'?

Cricinfo senior editor Osman Samiuddin looks at reasons for Pakistan's toils in Test cricket with side having lost 14 of their last 19 matches; structure, administration and player management under the microscope; watch second England vs Pakistan Test live on Sky Sports from Thursday

Those supporters have seen the side suffer 14 defeats in their last 19 Tests after last week's three-day, innings-and-103-run drubbing by England in the series opener at Headingley.

The tourists were loose and ineffective with the ball, poor with the bat and awful in the field - a damaging cocktail.

Ahead of the second game at Lord's from Thursday - live on Sky Sports Cricket (10am on air, 11am first ball) - Osman Samiuddin, a senior editor at Cricinfo and Pakistan cricket expert, joined Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain on the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast .

Samiuddin explained where he thinks things have gone wrong for Pakistan as cricket in the country reaches an "alarm bells stage" with fans "fed up" at how the game is being run…

OSMAN SAYS: "Whichever structure you choose - there has been a great battle in Pakistan over the last 50 years, really, about whether you should have departmental or regional sides - I would pick one and stick with it, say this structure stays for the next 10, 12 years.

"They have changed structure almost every single season since the first first-class season in 1953. There has been no stability.

"We cut from 16 to six teams in 2019-20, then expanded to 16 teams with four first-class tournaments and three white-ball tournaments.

"When they cut down in 2019, they literally lost half their first-class cricketer pool. There were stories of players taking up driving taxis as, overnight, they didn't have a career.

"That drastic change every season has impacted the quality of domestic cricket, which is where you get your talent from.

"Domestic tournaments used to be played across 16 first-class grounds. For the last few years, they have been at about four or five.

"How are batters like Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq supposed to work out how to play in different conditions playing at four grounds?"

Samiuddin also said Pakistan do not play enough Test matches. The side have not had a double-figure number of Tests in a calendar year since 2017, while only Sri Lanka (4), Ireland (3) and Afghanistan (2) played fewer than their five matches in 2025. They are scheduled to play nine games in 2026.

"Since 2021, we have had four chairmen - Ramiz Raja, Najam Sethi, Zaka Ashraf and now Mohsin Naqvi - with very different views and very different levels of involvement in the game.