Although cricket is the most celebrated game in Pakistan, if it were to be ranked on the basis of past achievements in international arena, it would trail hockey by a big margin and squash much more than that.

However, Pakistan hockey and Pakistan squash now seem to be shadows of their past. Pakistan teams and players are nowhere near top teams and players in international arena.

Pakistan cricket team’s heydays began when the standard of squash in Pakistan started falling. The hockey team, fondly called Green-shirts, brought their last glittering World Cup title in 1994.

Many hockey pundits attribute the victory in 1994 to extraordinary efforts of legendary Shahbaz Ahmad and maintain that the downfall of hockey in the country started much before that.

As all other sports showed a downward trend during the last few decades, Pakistan cricket team managed to be considered among top cricket-playing nations -- the tag of ‘unpredictable’ notwithstanding.

Cricket proved to be the most lucrative sport since the large fan base has enticed sponsors for decades unlike hockey and squash. It must have been one of the key reasons that has kept cricket alive in Pakistan, where everything tends to corrode over time.

World Cup title in 1992 and World T20 crown in 2009 roughly give an idea that the team has stayed in the cricket map over time.

Although the team has been doing well in Test cricket under Misbah-ul-Haq for some years and has recently jumped to third spot in world rankings, in limited overs formats, Pakistan’s performance graph has gone down.

The ODI team, with annual ICC update, has been pushed out of the top eight. The significance of being out of top sides is that if Pakistan team fails to be among the top eight by September 30, 2017, it will not be able to directly qualify for cricket’s biggest event, the ODI World Cup.

The task ahead of Pakistan is to either snatch a place from seventh ranked Bangladesh, who used to be called minnows and underdogs a few years back, or eighth-ranked World T20 Champions West Indies.

Bangladesh cricket team has proved itself a potent force, especially in ODIs. The West Indians, with their latest T20 title, seem to have found a new zeal.

Considering Pakistan’s current form, it looks difficult that they will be able to beat Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, England and Sri Lanka.

If ninth-placed Pakistan fail to squeeze into the top eight by the cut-off date they will have to join the top sides from the ICC World Cricket League along with three other bottom-ranked sides in the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018 to fight for the two remaining positions.

There, Pakistan will find Afghanistan, craving for a spot in World Cup, and their nemesis of 2007 World Cup Ireland. Oman and UAE have also shown spark. So the qualifiers will not be a walk in the park either.

There is tough path for Pakistan cricket team to directly qualify for the World Cup and may be tougher through qualifiers.

We now rarely see Pakistan squash players featuring in top international events in main draws.

The Green-shirts have already failed to qualify for the Hockey World Cup 2014 and Olympics 2016 -- for the first time in history.

The present form of the cricket team and the unprofessional attitude of the board officials are frustrating for Pakistan fans. They fear cricket, their beloved sport, might also fall into oblivion just as squash and hockey did.