&quot;Most of the players do not perform on the field, why? Because they&#39;re mentally disturbed. They have a lot fears; take those fears away, that is the coach&#39;s job, it is not to teach the game,&quot; Akhtar said. He said that Pakistan cricket is currently going through its &quot;darkest era&quot;. In a scathing attack, in the aftermath of the side&#39;s disappointing performance at the Champions Trophy, Akhtar blamed poor coaching for the side&#39;s batting woes. He said the Pakistan team needs a new coach, who can &quot;unite the players in the dressing room&quot;. &quot;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,&quot; he said. <img alt="Shoaib Akhtar" src="http://images.mid-day.com/2013/jun/Shoaib-Akhtar.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 388px;" /> Shoaib Akhtar feels Pakistan cricket is currently going through its &quot;darkest era&quot;.u00a0 &quot;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,&quot; he was quoted as saying by &#39;Express Tribune&#39;. He said that the fact that Pakistan have been bowled out without playing the full 50 overs in seven of their last 12 ODIs is a discouraging sign. Akhtar, however, defended captain Misbah-ul-Haq who has come under fire for his slow batting and captaincy. He said Misbah can&#39;t be blamed because no one is doing consistently well in the team&#39;s batting line-up. &quot;He has no choice but to adopt a conservative and safety-first approach due to the poor performance of his colleagues.&quot; The former speedster said Pakistan&#39;s batting woes were a result of poor coaching at the grass-root levels. &quot;Pakistan has always been able to produce some of the world&#39;s greatest players. The greatest, however, have not coached the under-19 and the under-16 teams where they can be matured as a batsman. &quot;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&#39;s where real coaching comes into play. I would say that there is a huge gap in that area.&quot; Akhtar also suggested Tom Moody&#39;s name as a possible solution to Pakistan&#39;s ongoing problems. &quot;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.&quot; Akhtar also lashed out at national team&#39;s wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal. &quot;Kamran should be dropped for the match (against India) and the management must play an extra batsman who can also keep. I think Asad Shafiq should be given a chance,&quot; he told &#39;Geo News&#39;. &quot;Everyone knows the sort of keeping that Kamran Akmal does. I think I can also keep like this,&quot; he said. &quot;The unfortunate part is that for the last 10 years Pakistan has been looking for a good keeper who can also bat well,&quot; he said.

Continuing his attack on the country's cricket set-up, Pakistan's former fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar has described most of the members in the national team as "mentally disturbed".

Pakistan players are mentally disturbed: Shoaib Akhtar

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Pakistan players are mentally disturbed: Shoaib Akhtar

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