Rashid Latif Critiques PCB After Lord’s Defeat: ‘Worst Board in 70 Years’

Pakistan’s tour of England has lurched from worrying to brutal. The numbers at Lord’s on Sunday were damning enough: a 194-run defeat, a 2-0 series loss with a Test still to play, and a batting line-up that has yet to touch 200 in any innings on this tour.

But the fiercest blow did not come from an English quick. It came from a former Pakistan wicketkeeper.

Latif’s broadside: “Worst board in 70 years”

Rashid Latif, never one to sugarcoat, launched an unflinching attack on the Pakistan Cricket Board, the selection committee and the coaching staff, insisting the rot runs far deeper than the XI on the field.

“Everyone is talking about the Pakistan team, and how it is the worst touring team in the last 50 years,” Latif said on Geo News. “But nobody is speaking about how the current board is the worst in the last 70 years. Nobody is talking about the worst selection committee and coaches.”

He did not stop there.

“If you combine these issues, you will get the answer to your question. You will know who has ruined this team. Now you are losing consistently. This is the worst cricket board, that’s a fact.”

The verdict was as stark as the scoreline. While British media have lined up to label this side among Pakistan’s poorest travellers in half a century, Latif pushed the responsibility firmly upwards, away from just the players and towards the system that picked and prepared them.

Batting in ruins

On the field, the evidence is impossible to ignore. Across two Tests, Pakistan have not crossed 200 once. In England, that is not just a flaw; it is a surrender.

The second Test at Lord’s was supposed to mark a turning point. Babar Azam, who missed the opening Test, returned to steady a fragile top order and restore some authority. Instead, his comeback only deepened the gloom.

He scraped 8 in the first innings and 6 in the second. No statement, no resistance, no anchor.

His second-innings dismissal captured the malaise. Jofra Archer dug in a sharp, rising delivery. Babar, normally so assured against pace, fended and failed. Another wicket, another Pakistan innings unravelling under pressure.

The captain’s struggles have become a symbol of a wider collapse. This is not a side losing tight sessions; it is a side being brushed aside, innings after innings, without a foothold.

Turmoil off the field

All of this played out against an uneasy backdrop. The Lord’s Test unfolded while Sky Sports aired an 18-minute interview with the sons of Imran Khan, focusing on the former Pakistan captain and prime minister’s imprisonment.

Reports quickly surfaced that the PCB had threatened to pull Pakistan out of the Lord’s Test in protest at the broadcast. The story added a layer of political tension to an already fraught tour.

Both Babar Azam and head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed moved to shut that down, denying that Pakistan had considered withdrawing from the match. They insisted the team’s focus remained on cricket.

Yet the noise around the side, from politics to governance to selection, only amplified Latif’s fury. To him, the chaos is not a coincidence; it is the context.

Edgbaston or embarrassment?

Now comes the final stop: Edgbaston, Birmingham, from September 9. The series is gone. England lead 2-0 with an unassailable grip. What remains is pride — and the threat of a 3-0 whitewash.

Pakistan must regroup, somehow, in a week. They need runs from a line-up that has not produced them, leadership from a captain under fire, and clarity from a structure being savaged by its own former players.

Latif has made his judgment. England have delivered theirs on the field.

What Pakistan offer at Edgbaston will say plenty about whether this is just a bad tour — or the sign of something far more broken.