"Hundred per cent. I've not found the PSL enjoyable for a number of years now."
Gohar Shah is not here to make friends, which is probably just as well at this rate. The Pakistan Super League's newest owner, who took charge of Multan Sultans last month, has a lot on his mind, and he wants to get it all out.
"I think the composition of squads and the selection of players at the PSL is very defensive," Gohar says. "Selectors, general managers, coaches, they all want to retain their jobs. So they pick teams that will do well on the day. There are not many franchises with a vision or flexibility to think bigger. A lot of decision-making in the PSL is risk-averse, whereas T20 cricket is about taking risk. It's all about taking chances.
"Jacob Bethell just got appointed captain at the Hundred. That's what risk-taking looks like. Unfortunately, none of the PSL sides have been brave enough to do that - maybe Islamabad United a couple of years with Shadab. But since then [no similar decisions]. Put your neck out there."
It is in that vein, Gohar is keen to project that his own team will go about their business, but perhaps it's worth caveating that first. This Sultans side isn't even his own team. Gohar did not bid for either of the two new franchises, saying he wished to wait until Sultans, which the previous owner Ali Tareen had opted not to renew, became available the following year. When the PCB, buoyed by higher than expected selling prices, opted to rush through the sale of Sultans, Gohar whirred into action.
He scrambled between London, where he now lives, and Lahore, and was present at the bidding, where he eventually lost out to Walee Technologies, who shelled out a record annual PKR 2.45 billion for the privilege, and renamed it to Rawalpindiz. The disappointment on Gohar's face at missing out was visible, plastered across social media and held up as a sign of his earnestness and sincerity. It gave him a sympathetic domestic audience, even if it did not, at the time, give him the franchise he so craved.
Exactly what followed is rather murky. "I think the PCB should be providing clarity to everyone on MultanGate," Gohar says. "A couple of days later, I started getting calls that the Sialkot [Stallionz] owners were looking to sell their stake."
Briefly, the Stallionz owner Hamza Majeed appeared to have decided to relinquish his controlling share in the franchise mere weeks after the purchase. Gohar sniffed an opportunity to snap up the franchise for cheaper than Multan would have sold, paying a small premium for the Sultans branding rights. For PKR 2 billion a year, Multan Sultans was suddenly his.
It was still nearly twice as much as what Tareen decided wasn't worth renewing for, but as far as Gohar is concerned, the finances of the deal are very much secondary.
"There's a scarcity value," he says, with the genuine excitement of a collector who just completed their set. "There's a value to owning something there are only eight of in a country of 250 million people. I manage a fund and value companies day in and day out. My personal valuation methods and techniques led me to believe all the franchises in Pakistan are significantly undervalued. Especially when compared to its value across the border [in the IPL]. Short term it may be a bitter pill to swallow but longer term it makes more sense."
But Gohar's more interested in talking about his ideas for the franchise. At 30, Gohar was not so long ago a first-class cricketer himself, playing a handful of games for National Bank and Loughborough university as a fast bowler. ("I'm the only owner ever who has a hyperlink on ESPNcricinfo," he beams proudly.) But a back injury derailed his career, and he ended up in financial consulting with Deloitte in London, which appears to have set him up in a position to indulge what he calls the "passion project" of owning Multan Sultans.
"I stopped enjoying watching Pakistan cricket for a number of years," Gohar says. "I thought we lost our X factor and the ability to win games in moments. It's probably the first time since I've been alive that you'll be watching a game that you know we have no chance of winning. Two decades ago, up until the last mathematical possibility, you felt we had a chance."
Gohar has come up with his own branding for the kind of cricket he wants Sultans to play - Total Cricket. It is modelled, he says, after Total Football, pioneered by the revolutionary tactics that came to define the Netherlands football team and became synonymous with footballing legend Johan Cruyff.
"I'd like to think there's a unique vision," Gohar says, a little self-consciously. "It's not something I came up with overnight. Total Cricket isn't just going out there and batting in a gung-ho fashion, but being proactive.
"Proactivity doesn't mean swinging at every ball, but looking at the best scoring option. You're not trying to anchor or ease the pressure, but actively trying to see where my chance for scoring the highest amount of runs taking the lowest amount of risk is. You do that over 120 balls, you're more likely to succeed than not. Sort of a hybrid between Bazball and Smartball."
It's easy to be cynical, because it can sound suspiciously like management-speak - the Deloitte way to solve a cricketing problem, if you will. There is an instinctive pushback against high-handed philosophising of the sport, not least from players themselves. And while, for example, Islamabad United have enjoyed plenty of success with an unashamedly data-driven approach, perhaps no other side gets mocked with as much relish as them when results take a downturn. It is not hard to imagine the Sultans facing a similar fate should early results go against them.
At its core, though, Gohar believes he can reconcile the high-handed theory with on-field fixes that, in principle, form the conventional basis of cricket, starting with a non-negotiable focus on fitness and fielding.
"I think we lose 10-20 runs while batting solely because our batters aren't that well equipped about making twos out of ones, which is essentially two extra overs worth of runs. Similarly with the ball, you're always trying to take wickets. You could go for runs, but we've seen 250 runs scored regularly anyway so what are you scared of? If you take a wicket every over or so you could get teams out for 150-160, which is very chaseable.
"In Total Cricket, you don't need fielders who you need to hide somewhere on the boundary. You need fielders who can field point, but also long-on. Over a longer period of time, saving 30 runs, whether with the bat or the field, you will win more games than not, especially when eight teams have a similar purse."
Some of the decision-making before the PSL really is just standard common-sense stuff. Gohar was denied the opportunity to build his own team because he came in as an owner late, but Sultans have chosen Ashton Turner as captain over the more glamorous Steve Smith. The logic there is fairly straightforward; Turner is among the most successful franchise captains anywhere in the world, having led Perth Scorchers to three of their five BBL titles, including the most recent one two months ago.
"If we can replicate that and merge it with Total Cricket, who knows? The sky's the limit. I've never tried this method in a tournament as big as the PSL. We may not get it right the first time, but I can guarantee we will do things very differently."
Total Cricket, as far as Gohar is concerned, is here to stay. The next six weeks will go some way to determining whether it is remembered as a punchline or a trailblazer. And, indeed, whether Gohar finds watching the PSL enjoyable once again.
