Pakistan has shown a great deal of improvement as compared to previous team , this recent team has revived Pakistan's name on international level as far as cricket is concerned. Current team under Babar Azam captaincy have won may matches series and qualified for many finals and definitely if they'll work hard and remain determined they will win World Cup final too.
Yes there is problem of nepotism and selection on basis of personal favours and this is present in all criteria boards .
Pakistan has much stronger and quality teams in past as well but still their main problem was they had never been predictable which is surely amazing stuff for some cases, but recently they are improving, but now they are not having a strong unit which give them good fight until end most of the time they are depended on just two or three players which is not ideal situation if they want to have good mark on the game then surely they need to work on domestic with strong system and strategy which give them good unit and better replacements which helps them in International matches right now they have short list which is surely not good for their campaign in all three formats with right now England, India and Australia are having big edge which need to cover with their performance and quality instead of numbers.
Right now, whenever Pakistan is playing against the top four teams, actually not only the top four teams, whenever Pakistan is playing against teams that are quite competitive and play cricket regularly their target certain players of Pakistan with all their force. Because they know that Pakistan is not going to be able to win if those players do not perform well for Pakistan. And thats where I agree with @TheGreatPython that Pakistan has become very predictable. And that did not happen previously in Pakistan. In my opinion. At least not to this extent.
Pakistan is giving a good fight to the top teams. I have no doubt about that. But Giving a good fight is not going to cut it at the top level of cricket.