For a tournament that could very well be the crossing of the Rubicon for Pakistani cricket, the sort of debate the Pakistan Super League (PSL) has elicited has been pretty rudimentary.
Thus far discussions and arguments have been restricted to why the tournament isn't happening in Pakistan but Doha in Qatar (a position that really ought to have fewer backers than it does considering everything that's happened over the last seven years), how this version of the event is so inferior to the version that didn't get past the very start of its journey under Zaka Ashraf and why the PCB is aiming for so little and not taking the Indian Premier League (IPL) head-on (which perhaps shows even less understanding of economics than Wall Street had before 2008).
Over the next three months or so Pakistan too will have its outrage merchants in full flow once the franchises are bought, and especially once the players start getting paid.
Comparisons will be made to everything from past sportsmen to universally admired professions, who earn less in a year than a fortnight of cricket in the PSL will earn its players.
The sport's hot-take machine of the twenty-first century has mostly passed Pakistan by thus far, but the PSL is bound to result in a paradigm shift.
Beyond the ill-informed opinions though, what the PSL promises is something that the PCB hasn't been able to sell as yet.
The key to Pakistan's success from the 1970s through until the 1990s, and to Pakistan's limited overs failings over the past decade, has to do with Pakistan cricket's role in the world game.
Pakistan's success from the doldrums of the 1960s to challenging the world's best by the mid-1980s was reliant on the sheer number of Pakistanis that played in County Cricket, and their participation in World Series Cricket.
With the exception of West Indies, Pakistan provided the most ammunition for both the old world and Kerry Packer's new one.
At the centre of cricket's progress were the very men who would group together to lead Pakistan into its greatest era. And it's something even their successors point to as the key element in their development.
For most of his career Saqlain Mushtaq was the premiere spinner in the country, and there are no two ways about what he thinks of the PSL. "I believe that whenever players from different backgrounds or nationalities meet it's a chance to exchange qualities," the 39-year-old, who played 49 Test matches for Pakistan, said.
"Any dressing room which is diverse is bound to be a better place than a uniform one because of this exchange in qualities. Any tournament that allows for Pakistani players to share a dressing room with foreign players is bound to have a positive impact on them; particularly, I believe, as far as their professionalism is concerned."
Over the past eight years, with the IPL slowly becoming the mecca for this exchange of ideas in international cricket, Pakistan has become a pariah.
Thus the PSL really ought to be presented as a home grown successor to all that made Pakistan great before, rather than a doomed attempt to emulate the IPL.
Hence, it is very much a surprise every time the PCB tries to sell the PSL in the media and doesn't use this as its building block for public support.
But that is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the league is concerned. The greatest problem going for the PSL right now is the decrepit state of the game in the country. Pakistan remains stuck decades behind the rest of the world and any improvement is going to be welcomed by the cricketing fraternity.
It's difficult to argue against the PSL when you consider what the alternative is.
Last month, the foremost domestic T20 competition in the country – the succinctly named Cool and Cool Presents Haier Mobile T20 Cup 2015/16 – finished with 33 matches played in just eight days across three grounds.
The state of the teams was such that each side resided in the same hotel – a hotel that had neither a swimming pool, nor a gym. Furthermore each team was provided with just four pairs of pads and helmets, with players getting as little as Rs. 4,000 per match (about a third of the minimum wage in the country).
To go from that to a tournament that will make millionaires out of dozens of local players will be an oasis in the desert for a lot of the participants, particularly those that haven't represented, or haven't been regulars, in the Pakistan team.
Saqlain has been a close observer of the domestic game since moving back to Pakistan earlier this year (after having worked extensively with Saeed Ajmal in Lahore last season), and he has been vociferous in his complaints about the state of the domestic game, particularly the financial aspect, in his television appearances.
For him, investment in the domestic game is paramount.
"In my eyes it's simple really: the dish will only be as sweet as the amount of sugar you put in it. If the financial situation of the player improves, if he is not bound down by financial constraints, he can focus on his game more, and once it goes beyond his minimum threshold only then will he start investing in himself.
"Right now our players aren't getting paid well enough to invest in themselves; especially to have the diet and nutrition a sportsman needs. How do you expect them to perform at international levels then?"
That, in a nutshell, is why Pakistan and the PCB needs the PSL, even if they refuse to look at it that way.
A tournament that has been made for the betterment of the players, professionalisation of the PCB and improvement in quality across the domestic game is what the PSL ought to be, and needs to be sold as; not, as has increasingly been the case, a monthly sojourn to the desert that is designed only to line the pockets of a select few.
The question shouldn't be whether Pakistan needs the PSL but rather why it needs it. Alas, that may be too much to ask for.
