Seeing Pakistan’s cricketing performance chart going down with every passing series, the country’s board has opted for a unique approach to finding talent. Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief Mohsin Naqvi has revealed that the selection of players from the country’s domestic spectrum is broadly being done using artificial intelligence. While the use of AI is gaining prominence in the field of Information Technology, E-Commerce, and several other businesses, the PCB has become the first board to openly reveal the use of AI in the selection of their players.

In a press conference, Naqvi spoke to the media about the under-par performances of the men’s national team, especially in the wake of the recent defeat against Bangladesh at home. Naqvi had famously called for a need to do surgery after Pakistan’s early T20 World Cup 2024 exit, but not much has changed since.

“The problem is the selection committee has no pool to turn to from which to select players,” the PCB chairman said. “I spoke of surgery because we need to fix our problems. But when we look at how to resolve them, we don’t have any solid data or player pool which we can draw from. The whole system was a mess. The Champions Cup will produce great talent, and we’ll have records for the games that happen. For surgery, you need all the tools to perform it.”

“We had a lot of players for which we didn’t have records. This Cup will make domestic cricket strong, we’ll have a pool of 150 players, and then the surgery we need to be done, the selection committee will do. People said ‘do it all today, slit the throats of four-five players, and get rid of them’. You can’t dump someone unless you have a better one to replace them,” Naqvi said.

Naqvi revealed that the 150 players who will be selected, will see 80% population getting picked purely using AI. The human involvement will be just 20%.

“These 150 players that have been selected, 80% of it has been done by AI (Artificial intelligence), and 20% using humans. Nobody can challenge that. We gave about 20% weightage to our selection committee. If we replace a player with a worse one, you’ll be the first to complain. We’ll have records and we’ll all be able to see transparently who deserves a place in the team,” the chairman said.

“The Champions Cup will end in September, and then there will be records for everyone. Anyone who isn’t performing will be immediately replaced. It shouldn’t come down to anyone’s individual opinions and wishes,” he further said.