Pakistan players play in fear, they are mentally disturbed: Shoaib Akhtar

Karachi: Pakistan's former fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar famous for not mincing any words when it comes to criticism of the country’s cricket set-up,  in another attack has described most of the members in the national team as "mentally disturbed".

"Most of the players do not perform on the field, why? Because they're mentally disturbed. They have a lot fears; take those fears away, that is the coach's job, it is not to teach the game," Akhtar said.

He said that Pakistan cricket is currently going through its "darkest era".

In a scathing attack, in the aftermath of the side's disappointing performance at the Champions Trophy, Akhtar blamed poor coaching for the side's batting woes.

He said the Pakistan team needs a new coach, who can "unite the players in the dressing room".

"I think this is the darkest era of our cricket and I think if we need to take positives from the Champions Trophy we should learn from South Africa who survived isolation in the apartheid era and have emerged as a top team in the world," he said.

"Pakistan needs to learn from them because we are also in a similar position as there is no international team coming to Pakistan since 2009. But we are still in a better position than them in the sense that we are still playing our matches at neutral venues," he was quoted as saying by 'Express Tribune'.

Akhtar however defended captain Misbah-ul-Haq who has come under fire for his slow batting and captaincy.

He said Misbah can't be blamed because no one is doing consistently well in the team's batting line-up.

"He has no choice but to adopt a conservative and safety-first approach due to the poor performance of his colleagues."

"By those ages you should have maturity as a batsman. The best age is 15, if you tell them how to play the game and rotate the strike, that's where real coaching comes into play. I would say that there is a huge gap in that area."

Akhtar also suggested Tom Moody's name as a possible solution to Pakistan's ongoing problems.

"Pakistan should go for Tom Moody; he is the only man who can bring the match-winning attitude into the team. He is fantastic, rugged, brilliant manager, brilliant motivator and accommodator and he knows how to handle guys."