How long can you last in international cricket without being able to bat? This sounds like one of those impossibly existential how-many-angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin type of questions. In this case, however, we have an answer. Evidence suggests you can last a pretty long time in world cricket without being able to bat. Potentially many decades, as Pakistan's example shows.

Okay, I'm being harsh. It isn't that Pakistani men can't bat at all; every now and then you'll see a fifty or two, and once in a generation someone will come along who could be selected as a batsman in a more successful international side. But no one would call Pakistan a nation of batsmen. And based on current form, Pakistani batting is certainly at the bottom of the heap. Over the last two years, even Bangladesh have scored more Test runs per wicket than Pakistan.

Fans lament the decline of batting in a country that once produced the likes of Zaheer Abbas and Javed Miandad. But objective assessment suggests this complaint is based on a fallacious premise. Zaheer, for example, was a run-machine no doubt, but only when the stars were aligned, which wasn't all that often and certainly seldom when most needed. And while Miandad was unquestionably a batting genius, he remained overshadowed by greater Indian, West Indian, and Australian contemporaries – as it happened with Pakistan's other authentic batting hero, Inzamam-ul-Haq, a decade later.

Of course there is the legend of Hanif Mohammad, who once after following on made a triple-hundred that is still the highest Test score away from home. That's more than enough to earn the choicest of batting stripes. He also bettered Bradman, creating a new first-class record – with his innings of 499 – that stood for 35 years. Clearly, Hanif's impeccable technique and enormous concentration have cast a long shadow on cricket history. But Hanif's batting instincts weren't indigenously Pakistani, as he was already well into his teens by the time organised cricket first emerged in Pakistan. More likely, the secret of Hanif's batting prowess may lie in his Indian roots. He hails from a region (Junagadh) that happens to be in the same approximate part of India that gave rise to Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavasker. Coincidence? Maybe, but maybe not.

Then there are a host of other batting names that various segments of Pakistan supporters keep trotting out to substantiate the nation's batting credentials. Prominently figuring among this lot are the likes of Majid Khan, Salim Malik, Saeed Anwar, Saeed Ahmad, Mudassar Nazar, and Mushtaq Mohammad. Each of these players has one or more definitive match-winning or match-saving performances to his credit. But a handful of special knocks are not enough for a hallowed reputation. In fact, none of these batsmen even has a Test average over 50, which ends this whole line of argument right there.

Some would cite Imran Khan as a world-class feather in Pakistan's batting cap, and in fact they would not be far off the mark. Although his bowling overshadows his batting gifts so much that Imran is rarely thought of as a frontline batsman, this is a gross misperception. Imran is very much a proven batting match-winner, and you need look no farther than the ’92 World Cup final if you doubt this. Even more convincing is that over the 48 Tests that he captained, Imran's batting average exceeded even that of Javed Miandad. That's a phenomenal statistic proving Imran's great fight and resolve at the crease. Yet it also begets the question: where was all that fight and resolve when he was batting under the captaincy of other men? So Imran, too, it will have to be said, falls short in this calculus.

The cherry on the cake is that even the two world-class batsmen who have graced the Pakistan side in recent times – Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan – have been harassed and victimised beyond belief. Their accomplishments have already placed them in the Pakistani batting pantheon, and you'd think that in a country where batting skill is at such a premium, they'd be treated like kings. Yet both have been kept out of the side on petty whims, dragged before dubious disciplinary committees and parliamentary commissions, caricatured in the media, and demonised in back-room cricket board politics. Instead of the PCB helping them achieve the height of their potential, it has throttled their talents to ensure that they are kept from giving their best.

One is amazed at how far Pakistan have actually come despite this handicap. Batting, along with bowling, fielding and captaincy, is one of the four key departments of the game. It is simply stunning that Pakistan won Tests against England and Australia last year, and managed to reach the World Cup semifinals this year, with two major departments – batting and fielding – virtually threadbare. Adding competent batting to this mix could make them almost unbeatable; that is surely worth aiming for.

Sickened to the core by collapse after batting collapse, the fan base keeps demanding a quick fix, but of course there isn't any. Everybody's favourite remedy is to appoint the most awesome batting coach possible, which is just magical thinking. If only the acquisition of great batting skills were that simple.

No doubt a batting coach is needed, but a lot more is needed besides. The hard truth is that improving Pakistan's batting resources requires a long-range strategy and a patient mindset that is prepared for delayed gratification. It has to be approached like the grafting of a lengthy innings, not a wham-bam slog. There must be tremendous rigour in domestic cricket and nothing but merit in all team selection. These measures must be unfailingly sustained for at least a generation before thinking about reaping the rewards. Needless to add, a stable administrative infrastructure is a prerequisite. Perhaps at some future point all this will come to pass, but from today's vantage it appears a very tall order for Pakistan.

An India-Pakistan semi-final [in a World Cup] has never happened before and is unlikely to happen again for at least another generation. On the basis of rarity alone, therefore, this would be an encounter to cherish. But the matter goes well beyond the obvious.

Sports ultimately are a form of make-believe, but here we have a sporting rivalry with roots so deep that it is no longer clear which is the genuine conflict and which is the proxy. If you took a survey of Indians and Pakistanis today, they will not be clear whether it is more important to
defeat your neighbour in cricket or war. Quite likely, a majority will prefer victory in cricket. To this extent, the goal of any cricket diplomacy has already been achieved.

Both teams have their raw sporting assets, but everybody knows this is a contest that is going to be won or lost in the head. Pakistan is a team that in recent times has been punched in the face, kicked in the ribs, slapped around, and spat upon which means they now have almost nothing to lose. This gives them an edge in fearlessness. India, on the other hand, are riding a tidal wave of support and popularity, which means they have already secured the upper hand. This gives them an edge in confidence.

In terms of skill and tactics, you could not have asked for a more tantalising contrast. Indian and Pakistani cricket traditions are products of the same soil, but over the decades, India became a nation of great batsmen while Pakistan became a nation of great bowlers. How and why this happened is a mystery, although theories abound and the topic is a staple of Asian cricket discussions.

In this tournament alone, Pakistani bowlers restricted Australia to 176 and West Indies to 112, when the same teams racked up an additional 70-80 runs each against Indian bowlers. Moreover, the combined economy rate of Pakistan's four most economical bowlers is 3.57 runs per over, while for India the corresponding figure is nearly an extra run per over higher at 4.53. To drive this point home, Indians have bowled only 7 maidens in the tournament thus far while Pakistanis have bowled 24.

On the batting side, Pakistan have crossed 300 only once so far, and that too against Kenya, when India have exceeded 300 against two Test sides (England and Bangladesh) and very nearly did it against a third (South Africa). Moreover, Pakistan has yet to record a century in this tournament, while India has already notched up five. Perhaps most impressively, the strike rate of India's top four run-getters ranges from 86 to 121, while for Pakistan the corresponding range is a clear rung slower at 73 to 84.

What we have coming up in Mohali, therefore, is in some ways the ultimate cricket contest: a side that knows the craft of delivering a ball pitting its wits against an outfit that knows it way with a bat; in a knockout encounter where the context is influenced by history, culture, politics, and God knows what else; and whose stakes circumstances have pushed impossibly high.

India have a perfect 4-0 record against Pakistan in World Cup matches, but in the 2011 edition Pakistan have thus far enjoyed a better run, topping their group with five wins, while India came second in their group with four wins and a tie. Even against Australia and West Indies, the two sides in this competition that India and Pakistan have both faced, Pakistan's wins were by bigger margins than India's. Despite these differences, Pakistan are the underdogs for Mohali. This may irk their fans, who are craving momentum and hype, but it probably suits the team just fine.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere in Pakistan is tense and anxious. A cardiologist friend of mine says the stress of unblocking coronary arteries in the middle of someone's heart attack is nothing compared with the anxiety he is feeling in the build-up to Mohali. A neurosurgeon friend, whose professional work requires opening skulls to repair diseased brains, made a similar observation. Even people who’ve never paid much attention to cricket are reporting butterflies in the stomach. They may sound silly and frivolous to an outsider, but many Indians and Pakistanis will identify with these confessions.

Coming into the semi-final, Pakistan have skilfully negotiated several challenging hurdles. Handicapped by an ineffective opening pair, an unreliable wicket-keeper, and the absence of their two best seamers, they have made the most of the hand that was dealt. A grand treasure beckons in the distance, but Afridi and his men find themselves separated from it by impossibly treacherous terrain. They are in a zone where the tactical guide goes out the window and survival instincts must take over. Many people are saying it doesn’t get better than this in cricket, but it could be persuasively argued that it doesn’t get better, period.

Even though he made a century on Test debut, it took a while for fans to warm up to Younis Khan. His technique seemed casual, even careless. Each delivery was eyed for a boundary, he was vulnerable to swing with far too many edges, his bat was too far in front on the forward defensive, and there was more bottom hand in his drives than the unwritten standards of Asia’s batting aesthetic would allow.

Despite that inaugural hundred, his average after his first 12 innings in Test cricket was only 21.25, and on more than half of those occasions he had been dismissed in single digits. Yet he was a heavy scorer on the domestic circuit, and the selectors persisted. His brass tacks, take-it-or-leave-it manner also won him a following.

Then came a string of overseas hundreds – in Sri Lanka, New Zealand, and Bangladesh, and against West Indies in Sharjah – and he more or less settled into the No. 3 spot, promising to heal one of Pakistan’s long-standing ulcers. Nevertheless, his erratic form continued. In the spring of 2005, when Younis met India in a Test for the first time, he had played 32 matches and his average was still less than 40.

That series revealed much about the man, not just to the public, but possibly also to himself. The first Test in Mohali saw him dismissed for 9 and 1, including the embarrassment of getting castled while shouldering arms. He was also off-key in the field and ended the game completely out of sorts. The press dismissed him, and Pakistan’s own team management vilified him.

The first true sign of his greatness as a batsman was that this mounting anger and hurt willed him into excellence. After 147 in the next Test at Kolkata, which Pakistan lost, he went to Bangalore, and scored 267 and 84 to become Man of the Match and square the series. The performance set Younis apart and demonstrated the enormous promise and possibilities of his career as a fighter, capable of batting his team out of trouble.

If you talk to Rashid Latif, the former Pakistan wicketkeeper and captain, who mentored Younis like a younger brother, the fulfilment of Younis’s heroic destiny was never in doubt. Younis came under Latif’s wings at the Malir Gymkahana, a sports club in one of Karachi’s middle-class suburbs. He impressed everyone with his untiring work ethic and his ceaseless devotion to every aspect of the game. “Younis never missed a match,” recalled Latif, when I spoke to him on the phone recently. “This may not sound like much, but in the context of Karachi in those difficult days, it told me a great deal about him.”

The point is subtle, but important. In the mid-1990s, when Younis was cutting his cricketing teeth, parts of Karachi were an ethnic war zone. The city's majority Urdu-speaking community was at loggerheads with the Pathans, who hailed from Pakistan’s north-west frontier. Younis, an unmistakable Pathan, would brave gang fights and flying bullets through some of Karachi’s most troubled areas, to be schooled by his teacher Latif, a celebrated Urdu-speaking son of Karachi, in a relationship that had the makings of an epic. Imagine a portentous Catholic-Protestant collaboration in Belfast during the height of the Irish trouble, or a black-white partnership in Soweto during the darkest days of apartheid, and you’ll get some idea.

Today Younis is a 64-Test veteran with 17 centuries and a 50-plus average. Aged 33, this puts him within striking distance of Pakistan’s most hallowed batting records. Already he has threatened Pakistan’s highest Test innings, 337 by Hanif Mohammad, with a triple-hundred in Karachi in 2009. Pakistan’s highest Test aggregate (8832 by Javed Miandad) and highest number of Test hundreds (25 by Inzamam-ul-Haq) are also in his line of fire.

He has a reputation for fearlessness – squaring his shoulders to any attack, straightening up after any blow, never shying from a verbal or psychological joust, and never hiding behind a nightwatchman. He has also convinced everyone of his unbending personal moral fibre. This magnificent inner strength enabled him to lead Pakistan to a Twenty20 world title mere weeks after terrorists had shattered the national cricket ethos with an attack on the visiting Sri Lankans in Lahore. It also allowed him to wait out the recent tense duel with PCB chief Ijaz Butt, until the lesser man finally blinked.

Many observers feel that Younis Khan also happens to be the most capable and deserving candidate for Pakistan’s Test captaincy. His record as captain (one win, five draws, and three losses) may not be noteworthy on paper, but he has leadership stature and, unlike other potential contenders (including the current captain Misbah-ul-Haq), is an automatic selection in the side. Most importantly, with the Pakistan team ensnared in a spot-fixing scandal, Younis stands firm as the only frontline player utterly untouched by this cancer. This might have had something to do with his unceremonious ouster from the captaincy following the disastrous summer tour to Sri Lanka last year – which would constitute a very good reason to put him back in the saddle now.

The terrible wrinkle is that Younis is on the wrong side of the current PCB administration, and these thoughts are moot until a new set-up comes in. The way things work in Pakistan, that could happen tomorrow, or not for another couple of years. Despite the anticipated turbulence ahead, supporters of Younis can take comfort that their hero is sitting pretty. Great things happen to men of destiny. Younis may be on the wrong side of the PCB, but he is not on the wrong side of history.

Those of us used to lulling ourselves to sleep with thoughts of great Pakistani cricket feats have been having a hard time lately. Even as recently as a few weeks ago, a silken Mohammad Yousuf late cut between gully and point, a Mohammad Asif in-cutter through bat and pad, or a bludgeoned pull into the stands by Shahid Afridi – or, for the nostalgic-minded, Imran Khan merely turning at the top of his bowling mark, Javed Miandad doing little more than taking guard, or Wasim Akram simply flashing a smile – would have been enough to sink even the most resistant insomniac fan into gentle stupor and a blissful night’s sleep.

As of the last three weeks, these images have not been coming as readily to mind as they once did. In their place, thoughts of misguided fast bowlers delivering suspicious no-balls and sleazy bookies counting a tableful of money have invaded the senses. Not that the betting scandal has been something particularly unusual. After all, off-the-record talk of match-fixing and spot-fixing has been going on in Pakistan cricket for a while. And as far as crises go, for the last few years Pakistan cricket has been going through one monster turn of events after another.
 
But the August 29 newsflash was spiced with enough salacious detail to take over the conversation completely. Still, any storm is expected to die down after a few days, and by now you would have thought the headlines would move on to an expectant wait, as the ICC appoints a tribunal and fact-finding begins. But a scandal-mongering British tabloid press is refusing to let go, and the sleaze and muck just keeps coming.

In Pakistan, most of us have learned that the most effective means of redirecting a cricket conversation is to play hard and play well. This lesson may have been lost on PCB chairman Ijaz Butt, who keeps talking in public as if he is holding forth with cronies in a drawing room in Lahore, but the coach-captain combination of Waqar Younis and Shahid Afridi, scarred veterans of multiple wars, knows it well.

Wounds were too fresh for any kind of fight back in the two-match Twenty20 series, but in the opening ODI in Durham the team walked out with purpose. That contest may have been lost by 24 runs, but it was clear that Pakistan had hit their stride. The next match at Headingley was stretched to the final over, but it was a 320-330 pitch and a target of 295 for a formidable English side led by an in-form Andrew Strauss was never going to be enough. Then came the victory at The Oval, one of Pakistan’s most reliable hunting grounds, and with it dreams of a victory to follow at Lord’s, and a decider at the Rose Bowl.

I’ll be honest. When the boundaries were coming thick and fast for Andrew Strauss and Steve Davies as they chased down 266 with a century opening stand last night, I had given up. Several other comrades, judging by the despondency of their text messages, had given up too. It was approaching midnight in Pakistan and a warm bed seemed far more inviting than fuming and stewing in frustration.

Then a wicket fell, and another. Sleep vanished. The ball began to reverse, boundaries dried up, and text messages began flying furiously. Eventually, Eoin Morgan stood between Pakistan and victory. Afridi had already dropped him, and this “little Irish genius” – as Osman Samiuddin described him in an urgent missive – was determined to cash in.

When Morgan top edged Shoaib Akhtar, I switched my television off. The ball rose alarmingly into the night sky, triggering a long-hidden reflex in my right thumb, which clamped down on the clicker. Even in the best of times, the idea of Pakistani fielders catching a skier is riddled with anxiety. On this occasion, it unleashed sheer panic.

After a few seconds, I turned the TV back on, but muted the sound and shielded my eyes from the screen. Holding my breath, I moved my hand just enough to allow a peek at the score line. From 211 for 7, it had changed to 211 for 8. Morgan was walking back and England were as good as gone. I realised I hadn’t indulged in these antics for many years, not since I was 15, which was thirty years ago.

That’s the deal with Pakistan. It may be a team that from time to time punches its fans in the stomach and kicks them in the face, but it is also a team that even in middle-age can make you feel like a teenager once again. Take that, forces of evil, whoever you are, wherever you are.

Going into the final Test at Lord's, Pakistan find themselves in a position they have never been in before. On only four previous occasions have they bounced back to win a Test match after being 2-0 down. These were all unexpected victories, and most fans will be able to recall them without much mental effort. It happened in West Indies in 1958 (where the deficit was actually 3-0), in Australia in 1981 and 1995, and at home against Sri Lanka in 2000. Neither of these can be considered a genuine comeback, however, because in each case the series was already lost and the contest had been reduced to a dead rubber.

Now ask yourself, how many times has Pakistan bounced back to win a ‘live’ Test after being 2-0 down? The answer is never - until last week at the Oval. Coming from behind is surely the greatest achievement in any battle, including sporting ones. Of all the things that made Oval 2010 special for Pakistan - rise of new blood, return of a legend, emergence of a healthy captain-coach combination, and psychological exorcism of a forfeit - it is this statistic that is perhaps the most special, and it conveys the scale of the accomplishment.

It isn’t that Pakistan haven’t bounced back before. No less than sixteen times have they recovered to win a Test after being 1-0 down. But keeping a series alive after being 2 Tests down is at a different level altogether. You find yourself flat on the mat, shoulders pinned down and your breath squeezed out. Even raising your head from that position is a huge effort, let alone getting back on your feet and delivering a knock out.

More impressive still are the non-cricketing factors that were surmounted, foremost of which is the negativism that has taken hold of Pakistan’s cricket-following public. Coming on the heels of hard times in Pakistan’s economy, society, and politics – not to mention the worst floods in anyone’s memory – this is no ordinary negativism but a fevered and deafening chorus of naysayers to which even the most diehard optimists have fallen prey. To be sure, the sense of doom and gloom is not unwarranted – Pakistan’s spineless batting performances and preposterous posturing from the PCB have certainly been a very trying combination for the fans – but it does underscore the deep confidence deficit that the team overcame.

Will this newfound momentum count for something at Lord’s? There are some encouraging indications that it will. Mohammad Yousuf’s presence has served as a potent batting tincture that is finally providing the bowlers with some decent scores to bowl at. Meanwhile the bowling is skilled enough to overpower any opposition so long as there are runs on the board. If the catching also comes off as it did at the Oval, then Pakistan could well tie the series after being 2-0 down – a feat that has not been performed in Test cricket in over 50 years.

England are armed with arguably the best side in the world, supported by a stable administrative infrastructure, an astute coach, a retinue of assistants and analysts, and a tradition of method and application. Pakistan's assets are less tangible – raw talent, the innocence of youth, and an internal rhythm whose psychology and chemistry defy logic. They must also draw inspiration from Pakistani heroes known for English exploits in decades past. Fazal Mahmood, Zaheer Abbas, Imran Khan and Javed Miandad are names they have grown up with. Then there is Waqar Younis sitting as coach in the dressing room, and Wasim Akram sitting inside their heads as a publicly embraced idol.

Perhaps most important of all is Pakistan’s stealth weapon – the sane and stable captaincy of Salman Butt, and his productive equation with Waqar. Butt has now captained his team to two wins from four Tests, playing against top opposition away from home. He is obviously doing something right. If the intelligent and articulate manner in which he conducts himself during the post-match conference is any indication, he is headed for a long and fruitful tenure. This would normally be great news for the fans, but in Pakistan it evokes fears that the PCB bosses, with their reverse-Midas touch of turning gold to dust, will get to him before long. One can only hope and pray it will not be so.

If all this is new territory for Pakistan, it is also a highly unexpected spot for England. Confirmation of England’s discomfort came from coach Andy Flower, who gave a testy response to Salman Butt’s endorsement of Australia as Ashes favorites. Throughout the summer, England have viewed Pakistan as merely a savory appetizer before the grand feast of the Ashes is tackled Down Under. Now the appetizer has released an acrid taste at the Oval and is threatening to get stuck in the throat at Lord’s.

Only in Pakistan could you have the country’s two best batsmen sitting at home while the national side takes a beating. It’s really baffling when you consider that only four Pakistanis have ever attained a Test batting average over 50, and Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan happen to be two of them (the other two being Inzamam ul Haq and Javed Miandad). When Pakistan last toured England, Yousuf emerged as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year, and Younis made 173 (run out) at Leeds. Batting together on the Headingley pitch, they compiled 363 for the third wicket.

Bewildered fans are now asking: what are these two doing sitting at home? Most perplexing is the absence of any coherent explanation for their exclusion. They have been cast as troublemakers, tarred and feathered, fined and sentenced – but for what? No one is quite sure.

Yousuf’s troubles started when he grumbled about his omission from Pakistan’s World Twenty20-bound squad in 2007. Soon afterwards, he joined the ill-fated Indian Cricket League and found himself tied up in legal and financial knots. Back in the Test squad last summer, he went on to captain Pakistan in New Zealand and Australia, but that didn’t turn out so well. There was an inquisition, and he was made out to be a criminal.

Younis’s trajectory has been even more Shakespearean. He appeared set to scale great heights after making a triple-hundred in Karachi and then pulling off a miracle by leading Pakistan to the World Twenty20 championship in June 2009, mere weeks after the terrorism in Lahore. But the tour to Sri Lanka that followed was a disaster and he was removed from the team. Younis was ensnared by an inquisition too. There was a lot of tut-tutting, and he too was made out to be a criminal.

How could we have come to this impasse? There is good reason to believe that much of it has to do with an inept, moody, and vindictive PCB administration. The charges against Yousuf and Younis haven’t matured beyond innuendo, and it increasingly appears that, more than anything, they are paying the price for having run afoul of the PCB bosses. It could have been something as trifling as a heated exchange of words, a glare and stare, a sneer and a jeer – and here we are.

In all the political infighting, interpersonal friction, media frenzy, and gossip mongering, it is easy to lose sight of what Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan truly represent. The bare fact is that they are batting legends. Yousuf is nothing less than a torchbearer for Asia’s wristy batting esthetic that drives fans into rapture. Younis is a tenacious fighter who has repeatedly played his heart out for his country. Neither is over the hill: Yousuf is not yet 36 and Younis not yet 33.

As things now stand, there are two schools of thought on their recall. One view is that these players were responsible for politics and disarray within the team, and we should forget about them and look ahead; this will undoubtedly mean continued batting embarrassments out in the middle, but will be good for the team in the long run. The competing view is that one must do whatever is necessary to strengthen the spine of the middle order. If that means recalling Yousuf and Younis, then let us not delay.

The PCB’s visible stance on this issue remains tentative. Meanwhile, the public mood is split and you can find opinions on both sides of the divide. The fan base ultimately just wants runs, and won’t quibble over who makes them and how. All it takes to change the prevailing sentiment is one influential innings. If either Younis or Yousuf is given the opportunity and makes a hundred, all will be forgotten. Perhaps that is what the PCB is afraid of.

Saeed Ajmal's moment of despair © AFP

It is not often that Pakistan’s supporters feel like hugging their team in defeat, but you can sense this mood rippling across the fan base on the day after. Pakistan is traditionally vilified for its inconsistency, but at the core of Pakistan’s approach there is actually a great economy of effort. Pakistani teams are known to squander head starts, fritter away advantages, and give up easily. Yet every now and then, motivated by the big occasion or a whiff of blood, they will give it everything and make it count.

These evidently contrasting behaviours are just two faces of the same coin. Pakistani cricketers abhor nothing more than wasted endeavour. They do not invest their effort lightly, but on the sporadic occasion when they do, they are more determined than anyone to see that their labour amounts to something.

Pakistan’s nail-biting (quite literally, as camera shots of the Australian dug-out confirmed) defeat in the 2010 World Twenty20 semi-final to Australia is therefore new territory for Pakistan and its supporters. The team fought all the way with everything it had, grabbing the initiative right away and dominating the game completely – until the final over, when it came up short. As an old Indian friend, referring to the Australasia Cup final from 1986, pointed out to me by text message afterwards: now we know what Indians felt like after Sharjah.

Entry into the semi-finals was regarded as something of a miracle for Pakistan, who had managed only one good victory from five tournament games. The rematch with Australia was anticipated with apprehension, trepidation and resignation. Not only had Australia made short of work of Pakistan in the group match, they had also mowed through everything else in their path with merciless efficiency. Complicating the picture were haunting memories of previous torment – a disastrous Australian summer most recently, but other embarrassments too, going back to the World Cup final in 1999.

As always, there are decisions to rue, and events that perhaps could have turned out differently in hindsight. The way Saeed Ajmal was taken apart in the final over by Michael Hussey, that responsibility might have been better entrusted to Mohammad Aamer. Had Umar Akmal thrown his bat with greater abandon in the final over, perhaps Australia’s target might have gone past 200. These and related thoughts naturally keep coming to mind, but they are not associated with value judgments. You can’t find fault with an offspinner who strained every sinew, with a batsman who cut like Sachin Tendulkar and pulled like Viv Richards, with a team that played its heart out.

Of course, Australia were awesome. It is galling that they made good on their arrogance and boastfulness, but they did so fair and square. Hats off to them. Once Pakistani teams have crossed their cornered-tigers threshold, they never give up. They did not give up this time either. They just went down fighting. And when you go die fighting, you die with honour intact.

Moments like these create a parallax view, which can make you realize that perhaps life after all is not so bleak. As many observers have noted, Pakistan is the only country to have made the semi-final of every ICC tournament since the 2007 World Cup. This vaguely sounds like consistency – although Pakistani players and supporters alike will be loath to admit it. In Test cricket, Pakistan went without playing in 2008 but since then have won a Test in Wellington and all but won a Test in Sydney. Sure, the nation is in turmoil and the PCB is corrupt and misguided, but it was ever thus. The ground reality is that there have been no suicide bombings for a while now, and if peace returns, then international cricket at home cannot be far behind.

As the team heads back, it can be assured of a reception full of admiration, affection and warmth. Pakistani fans are notoriously unforgiving of their team in defeat, but losses such as these have the power to educate the public into taking defeats in stride. Pakistan could not defend their title but they were able to give history’s best team the memory of a lifetime. As consolation prizes go, this one’s not too bad.

"The anchor role has fallen to Umar Akmal by default" © Getty Images

Batting continues to be Pakistan's weakest department. Even in the match against South Africa that Pakistan won, the batting was off to a nightmarish start, at one point being 18 for 3 after five overs. In the match against New Zealand that Pakistan lost on the final ball, its bowlers had restricted the opposition to a modest 133, but the batsmen made heavy weather of the chase; the one exception was Salman Butt, who carried his bat, but even he failed to close the deal.

In the absence of middle-order stalwarts like Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf, and with repeated disappointments from Misbah-ul-Haq, the anchor role has fallen to Umar Akmal by default. Further, in the absence of Shoaib Malik and with Shahid Afridi not firing, the role of the batting allrounder has to be assumed by Abdul Razzaq. Kamran Akmal is an important presence up the order but being a wicketkeeper-batsman, he cannot be considered the mainstay. And while Butt is in excellent nick, he alone is not enough, as was painfully manifested in the match against New Zealand.

Meanwhile other batting options, such as Khalid Latif or Fawad Alam, have been hopeless. Uncapped Hammad Azam, who was instrumental in taking Pakistan to the final of the Under 19 World Cup this January, is also available as a batting allrounder but is obviously too much of a risk in a crucial tie.

If you look at the top 10 run scorers for Pakistan in Twenty20 cricket, most of them have a more or less similar batting average regardless of whether Pakistan wins or loses. Two names, however, stand out as exceptions: Umar Akmal and Razzaq.

Umar's overall Twenty20 average of 28.66 jumps up to 44.00 in matches won, while for Razzaq the increment is even higher, as his overall average of 33.57 shoots up to 81.50 in matches where his team is victorious.

The differences between overall average and average in matches won are highest for Razzaq (47.93) and Umar (15.34), and are in contrast to corresponding figures for the other batsmen in the top-ten list (in descending order of career Twenty20 runs): Shoaib Malik (4.25), Kamran Akmal (5.96), Misbahul Haq (7.79), Shahid Afridi (5.39), Salman Butt (-2.67), Younis Khan (0.34), Imran Nazir (7.63), and Mohammad Hafeez (2.62).

Razzaq's average of 81.50 in matches won seems an anomaly, but is explained by a large proportion of not-outs. On the 10 occasions that Razzaq has batted in a Twenty20 match won by Pakistan, he has remained not out 8 times. In comparison, he has never returned not-out in a match that Pakistan lost.

These figures suggest that Pakistan's chances of victory in the semi-final contest against Australia will increase significantly if Umar and Razzaq can get among the runs. Moreover, if Razzaq can manage to remain not-out, then based at least on this prediction model, victory for Pakistan will almost be assured.

Granted, one can only go so far with facts and figures. After all, Australia's professionalism is so ruthless, that they could well bulldoze Pakistan despite Umar and Razzaq doing well. Conversely, strong performances from any of the other Pakistani batsmen will lift the team even if Umar and Razzaq fail. Nevertheless, these statistics do point to a pivotal status for Umar and Abdul Razzaq in what is really a threadbare Pakistan batting cupboard with slim pickings.

The good news for Pakistan is that when Umar and Razzaq click, it creates a winning impact. If these two can manage a decent outing at the crease on Friday, the odds will tilt substantially in Pakistan's favour.

"It is clear that the captaincy is wearing heavy on Shahid Afridi" © Getty Images

It would appear after Pakistan’s loss in their initial Super Eights outing, that the team’s Twenty20 prowess has gone to its head. Pakistan are now taking their strategy to unprecedented, daredevil heights by trying to win matches without taking catches, without saving boundaries, and without executing run-outs. The wisdom of these tactics is not readily obvious but coming from Pakistan – a country and a team quite at home with enigmas – that is not such a surprise.

In the loss to England we also saw the now-familiar move where a Pakistani batsman of whom much is expected walks in at a critical juncture and commits suicide. The chosen method is exquisitely torturous: the batsman plays the ball straight into the hands of a close-in fielder and immediately sets off for a run. Over the years, we have seen the likes of Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan and Inzamam-ul-Haq engage in such hara kiri rather liberally. At Bridgetown yesterday, it was Shahid Afridi’s turn. To make it interesting, he decided to pull it off on the very first ball he faced. After he died his virtual cricket death, there was the customary agitated gesturing and scowling. Again, the logic of this tactic is not clear, but that’s Pakistan for you.

Then there is the time-honoured routine of the nonsensical reverse-sweep. It happens to be one of Pakistan’s great gifts to the game, along with reverse-swing and the doosra, so its origins are honourable enough. Mushtaq Mohammad invented it and Javed Miandad perfected it. But down the generations it seems to have become a source of slapstick entertainment. In Misbah-ul-Haq’s hands yesterday, it served as a powerful instrument of comic relief. Granted that the reverse-sweep is necessarily a premeditated stroke, but most exponents wait at least for the bowler to be locked into his delivery motion before they start to swivel. Misbah took it one step further yesterday by turning his body around before the bowler had barely started his run. The stumps were badly exposed and that was that. We are scratching our heads to understand how this move helped Pakistan, but that’s our team – they love to keep us guessing.

Unsuspecting Pakistan fans are still thinking that all these tricks are part of some Grand Plan. Having experienced the thrilling triumphs of World Cup 1992 and World Twenty20 2009, they are convinced that Pakistan’s lack of form isn’t worrisome. Good ol’ Pakistan, they always throw caution to the wind and rack up losses in the initial stage of a tournament, only to floor the pedal at the right time and speed through to the title.

Except this time it’s different. The rhythm is completely off. The body language is stilted. The facial expressions are tragic. One look at the dugout and the sombreness infects and envelops you, even sitting out here in Lahore or Karachi, thousands of miles away.

Most of all, Afridi is walking around cutting a sad, almost shattered figure. It is clear that the captaincy is wearing heavy on him. Throughout his career he has been a proud, free-spirited Mustang. His veins carry the blood of a warrior tribe and his approach has always been fearless and unforgiving. All of this works well in the sphere of individualism, but when you get burdened with systematic responsibilities they become a liability. We still love you, Afridi, but you’re no Younis. Your leadership experiment has failed.

Theoretically, Pakistan are still in the hunt, but only barely. To begin with, they must win both their remaining matches (against New Zealand and South Africa; neither exactly a pushover). Even so, of the four possible scenarios that could then emerge in Group E, three will involve run-rate calculations. Only if England also wins both its games, will Pakistan be assured of a semifinal spot, as England and Pakistan then edge out New Zealand and South Africa . If Pakistan lose one more match, then for all purposes they are knocked out.

Very soon everyone will start looking around for someone to blame. Hopefully, most, if not all eyes will settle on the PCB and its leadership, specifically chairman Ijaz Butt. Pakistan is a chaotic place to begin with, and Butt compounded the misery by meting out whimsical bans and punishments to key players in the days leading up to this tournament. It is hard to imagine a more damaging send-off for a team aiming to defend its title.

"As far as Pakistanis were concerned, all was well with the world" © Getty Images

Eighteen years ago today Pakistan scaled one of cricket's grand peaks when it lifted the World Cup trophy in Melbourne. It was the tournament's fifth edition and the first to be held in Australia and New Zealand. Pakistan's previous best showing had been the semi-finals, which they had reached in each of the previous three World Cups.

In 1992, the United States was a cricket wilderness and there were no easy opportunities for a cricket nut like me to follow the international game. Internet, satellite television, and even Cricinfo were in their infancy. I was a graduate student at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and quickly formed a support group with fellow fanatics. At a crisis meeting, it was concluded that our only real hope was a shortwave radio. We tested a few models but the background static left us unimpressed.

The tournament was fast approaching and emergency measures were required. I took the plunge and ran up my credit card debt purchasing a plane ticket to Karachi. School was in full session and my PhD advisor was aghast that I would be taking two weeks off in the middle of the spring semester. I made my excuses. He was a midwestern workaholic and didn't know cricket at all, but understood the pull of passion.

At Karachi airport, on the other hand, everyone was talking cricket. I told the immigration officer I had come to follow the World Cup and he told me not to get my hopes up. This is the Pakistani way of cheering on your team, and I felt at home right away. At baggage claim I overheard two porters talking about selection and couldn't help butting in. They were excited that Javed Miandad, who hadn't made the initial touring party, had been recalled and would be flying out to Australia.

Pakistan were one of the favorites leading up to the tournament but had suffered a string of round-robin losses and were facing elimination. Everybody was perplexed. With the exception of Waqar Younis, who was injured, it was a full-strength team led by Imran Khan. Wasim Akram was opening the bowling and Mushtaq Ahmed was there with his wrist-spin. Miandad and Saleem Malik were the batting anchors, supported by a newcomer named Inzamam-ul-Haq. We were in the middle of Ramadan, Islam's holy month of fasting, and the team's lackluster performance triggered profuse prayers and supplication.

We did not know it at the time, but something crucial had clicked into place. Perhaps it was all the prayer and meditation; perhaps it was Imran’s exhortation that his team should play like “cornered tigers,” which is now part of folklore. Regardless, a do-or-die game against Australia was won, and the national mood lifted.

One thing led to another. Inzamam found his form and Akram found his inner focus. The gods of cricket also pitched in. Pakistan’s entry into the semi-finals depended on Zimbabwe defending 140-odd against England, which miraculously they did.

We had organized a family get-together to watch that semi-final, beamed live from Eden Park. New Zealand racked up 262. Then Pakistan slumped to four-down for not too many and we were all shattered. Nobody had heard of Inzamam then. Even Miandad had no faith in him, signaling for Akram to come in instead as he anxiously waited at the non-striker’s end. But Imran gave the order, Inzamam stepped out, and a great career was launched.

By the time the final came, everyone in Pakistan was walking around in a fog of disbelief. This was utterly unfamiliar territory. At 24 for 2, Miandad walked out to join Imran. Derek Pringle was bowling lively swing and seam. Nerves were overwrought and a batting disaster seemed imminent.

But these two were riding the crest of Pakistan’s golden age and did not let anything get in the way. The final images are a blur. Akram bowled those two impossible deliveries, Mushy dismissed Hick and Gooch, Ramiz took the last catch, and Imran lifted the prize. As the players walked back to the pavilion, Miandad embraced Imran. As far as Pakistanis were concerned, all was well with the world.

I had left the US having made boastful predictions about Pakistan’s inevitable success. Our group of expatriates in the Durham area, which included self-appointed cricket pundits from all corners of the cricket world, had not taken to this lightly. To their credit, they received me with warmth.

It is easy to romanticise these events but we forget the reality of toil and conflict on which such extraordinary moments are founded. Years later, when I was interviewing Miandad for his autobiography, I asked him if he had batted in the final with a sense of destiny. “No, it was nothing like that” he said.

I wanted to probe. “You and Imran had unfinished business left over from the 1987 World Cup semi-finals,” I told him. “Surely your mind was focussed on this god-gifted second opportunity in Melbourne and the backdrop of what you and Imran had done to transform Pakistan cricket.”

“No, you fool,” he said, finally erupting with irritation. “The score was 24 for 2. I was defending my wicket. There was no room in my head for anything else.”

You have to ask, what is happening in Australian society to produce such agitation? © Getty Images

Imagine for a moment if the shoe were on the other foot. Pakistan has become so demonised, the spectacle is not hard to picture. During an ODI in Lahore or Karachi, an Australian fielder is standing at square leg. All of a sudden, a Pakistani spectator jumps the fence and sprints on to the field, tackling the Australian from behind and pinning him to the ground. What happens next?

Yes, security will run after the invader and subdue him, as happened in Perth. But after that? Do you imagine the Australian player picking himself up without fuss and walking up to his captain to describe the event with a wink and a smile? Do you imagine the Australian team shrugging the whole thing off and getting on with the rest of the game?

Probably not.

Far more likely, if a spectator jumped the fence like that in Pakistan – and despite the barbed wire they can still do it, trust me – Ricky Ponting would call his team into an exaggerated huddle, announce to the umpires that his team has had enough, and walk off the ground in a huff. The tour would be abandoned forthwith and the international media would start blaring nonstop what a rotten place Pakistan really is.

In fact, what happened with Pakistani fielder Khalid Latif in Perth is a timely reminder that it is Australia where such incidents of uncivil behavior are being seen more and more. Even a casual Internet search reveals several reports of crowd trouble in Australian sports. Australian football, it turns out, is no stranger to crowd disturbances, but over the last few years, a number of visiting cricket teams have also suffered and been forced to lodge complaints. This year even the Australian Open tennis tournament was marred by the need to eject unruly fans.

Still, I could not find any mention of a spectator assaulting a fielder in the middle of a cricket international. In over three decades of watching cricket obsessively, I certainly have never seen anything like it.

You have to ask, what is happening in Australian society to produce such agitation? The country has a troubling history. Its early settlers maltreated indigenous races, and even today there are reports of immigrants of South Asian descent being killed for no apparent reason other than prejudice. A widely cited survey conducted in Queensland and New South Wales during 2001 found that 40% of Australians felt certain ethnic groups did not belong in their country, and 10% had views that were considered overtly racist. Of note, the choicest venom was reserved for Muslims.

There is something arrogant and unwelcoming in all this – to put it mildly – and it is hard to deny that this attitude is now creeping into cricket. One would have expected more responsible behavior from an advanced industrial nation like Australia. In the event, the ones behaving responsibly in this matter were the Pakistanis. They showed great tolerance and good humor in picking themselves up and carrying on after the assault in Perth. But this should not and does not diminish the shocking scale of the incident.

Of course, it would be unfair to paint all of Australia with one brush, and it must be acknowledged that modern Australian society has opened its doors to many refugees and immigrants, the majority of whom enjoy a life of peace, fulfillment and dignity. At the same time, there is no denying that something is amiss. Incidents like the one in Perth are unwanted symptoms of a pervasive malady. There are forces in Australian society – government, social agencies, academia – that are hard at work to diagnose the root cause and fix the mess. The rest of the world is with them.

In the meantime, one must give full marks to the Pakistan Cricket Board for raising the issue in a formal complaint to the ICC. Unlike the national team, which had a spineless performance in Australia, the PCB is now standing up to this Australian boorishness. “Pakistan gets blamed for security breaches, but look at what happened in Perth,” a PCB official was quoted today as saying. This trenchant and hard-nosed attitude from Pakistan’s cricket authorities, who are forever playing off the backfoot, is long overdue.

For its part, Cricket Australia has tendered to the PCB an unconditional apology. Pakistanis are a forgiving bunch and the apology is accepted, but CA must make sure stuff like this isn’t allowed to happen again. If this becomes a pattern, we could soon be asking whether Australia is a safe venue for Asian teams.

	In the coming months, Mohammad Aamer will put more meat on that thin, almost wiry frame, and learn more tricks © Getty Images

Pakistan fast bowlers have a tradition of first unveiling their menacing intent in Australia. The last two men who did this were named Imran Khan and Wasim Akram. Now there is a new kid on the block answering to the name of Mohammad Aamer. By an ominous coincidence, Aamer has taken a five-for in a losing cause in Melbourne, something Imran and Wasim also did.

Ominous, because after Imran took 5 for 122 in a 1977 Test that Pakistan lost to Australia by 348 runs, he went on to take those 12 wickets at Sydney that stand out as one of the great milestones in Pakistan's cricket history. Wasim's gratification was more delayed but no less grand. In early 1990 he took 6 for 62 and 5 for 98 in a Melbourne Test that Pakistan still lost. Two years later he was back in Melbourne, this time to be crowned Man of the Match in a World Cup final.

For the budding fast bowler, a tour of Australia offers an unparalleled growth curve. The pitches are hard, the atmosphere intense, the competition unforgiving. There is no more utterly sink-or-swim scenario in world cricket. Imran first came here in late 1976 with a reputation
as a bits-and-pieces allrounder capable at best of wayward medium-pace.

He returned a few weeks later recognised as one of the foremost fast bowlers of the world. Wasim came here as an unknown in early 1985 and immediately took 5 for 21 in a crucial one-day tie against Australia.

"Everyone had to sit up and take notice," says Brian Murgatroyd of Cricket Australia in an ESPN documentary on Wasim. It marked the beginning of a career that would see Wasim counted among the great fast bowlers of all time.

Mohammad Aamer hails from Gujjar Khan, a town of about 70,000 that you pass on the motorway going from Islamabad to Lahore. Seventy thousand may seem substantial, but in Pakistan, a country of 160 million, it's the boonies. Now, however, it is on the cricketing map. This is where Aamer learned his bounding leap and wind-up action, and his ability to slant it
across the right-hander down the corridor of uncertainty. Presumably, this is also where he picked up an attitude, including a tendency to mock impertinent batsmen by throwing flying kisses down the pitch. Less clear is where he picked up his disregard for renown. Before a Champions Trophy match against India a few months earlier, Aamer announced his desire to
dismiss Sachin Tendulkar, and before this Melbourne Test he told Ricky Ponting to beware of the short-pitched delivery. Mission accomplished, in both cases.

He lacks the typical fast bowler's height, but a demon like Malcolm Marshall wasn't particularly tall either. And he is not fully adept at bringing it in to the right-hander, but even Imran took a while before he began moving it both ways with equal ease.

Most importantly, Aamer has shown he is full of fight. In a recent ODI against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi, he came in at 86 for 8 and posted the highest score ever by a number 10. The point is not so much that he is a capable batsman - although he did play some fine groundstrokes - but that he has a lot of heart. Certainly, a five-for in Australia on an unsporting wicket shows that he has the potential to get on top of any team.

He is still only a teenager. Although his official age of 17 may be under-reported, you can tell just by looking he is not a day over 19, at the most. Already he can clock at 150 kilometers per hour. In the coming months, he will put more meat on that thin, almost wiry frame, and learn
more tricks. The evidence suggests Aamer is preparing to fill the shoes of a fabled fast-bowling dynasty that has preceded him. If history is any judge, they will take him far.

	Despite Kaneria's ability and success, we are still left with a sense that he has not lived up to his promise © Associated Press

During the course of the second Test against New Zealand in Wellington, wrist spinner Danish Kaneria inched past an important milestone on the ladder of Pakistani wicket-takers. With 238 wickets (from 55 Tests), he has now become the most successful spinner (and the fourth-most successful bowler of any type) in Pakistani Test history. Ahead of him lie only the truly hallowed names – Imran Khan, Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram. Kaneria is almost 29, and still has several years of active playing life left. If he continues at his current rate of 4.3 wickets per Test and six Tests per year, he could well end up with 400 wickets.

He is no Shane Warne, but then nobody is. Still, Kaneria is potentially a great bowler. His numbers (an average of 34.04 and strike rate of 67.9) stand up well against Pakistan’s other leggies; an accomplished fraternity by any standards. Abdul Qadir took 236 Test wickets at an average of 32.80 and a strike rate of 72.5. Mushtaq Ahmed had 185 at 32.97 and 67.7, and Intikhab Alam, the first Pakistani wrist-spinner to go past 100 Test wickets, took 125 at 35.95 and 83.7.

Although Kaneria has done exceptionally well against Bangladesh (34 wickets at an average of 16.41 and strike rate of 36.1), he has succeeded against all the frontline teams as well. His Man-of-the-Match awards have come against South Africa, Sri Lanka, and West Indies, in addition to Bangladesh. During Pakistan’s 2005 series in India that was drawn 1-1, he performed better than his revered Indian counterpart Anil Kumble.

Kaneria’s assets include a highly effective googly, an accurate stock ball, and the will to strike back after coming in for some stick. Nevertheless, despite his ability and success, we are still left with a sense that he has not lived up to his promise. There is a feeling that he has not continued to grow as a bowler (he still cannot bowl a flipper, for instance), but to be fair, unimaginative selection is also to blame. With a respectable limited-overs record in domestic English and Pakistan cricket, he deserves greater opportunities in ODIs and Twenty20s. But in nine years of international cricket, he has played only 18 ODIs and not a single Twenty20 international for Pakistan.

Kaneria’s poor batting and fielding are cited as unacceptable limited-overs liabilities, but Saeed Ajmal, a tight spinner who is no better at batting and fielding than Kaneria, has shown you can be effective in limited-overs cricket on the basis of spin alone. The greater barrier is the presence of Shahid Afridi, a transformed wrist-spinner who these days can do no wrong. In the 1920s and 30s, Clarie Grimmett and Bill O’Reilly wreaked havoc as an Australian wrist-spinning partnership, but these days it is sacrilegious to suggest that you play two wrist spinners together. So long as this stale mindset prevails, Kaneria is unlikely to play ODIs or Twenty20s for Pakistan.

He is certainly the best wrist-spinner in Test cricket today, although that isn’t saying much. His natural comparison is with Qadir, but he lacks Qadir’s intensity and repertoire, and has yet to rip through an innings the way Qadir did on a few memorable occasions. Unlike Qadir, he has not mastered the art of flighting the ball and don’t expect him to bowl the ball of the century, because unlike Warne, he cannot get serious turn from balls pitching outside leg.

The flip side of this argument, of course, is that if you just fall short in comparison to the likes of Qadir and Warne, you’re really not doing too badly. Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Qadir, and Warne, along with Grimmett and O’Reilly, are five wrist-spinners who have made it into Christopher Martin-Jenkins’s ranking of the top 100 cricketers of all time. Will a similar compilation in later years find room for Kaneria? If he can learn one or two more tricks, it just might.

	In the seven Tests in which he opened, Shoaib Malik averaged 42.60 © AFP

The usual answer is that he doesn’t want to, but that is hardly good enough. After all, he’s an experienced professional. He has ability, depth, and a clever cricketing head. He can look opponents in the eye. Most important, he is playing in a team that has not found a successful opening pair in over a decade. Pakistan’s opening troubles have become so entrenched that the team mentally reduces itself to 10 for 2 even before the start of an innings.

If there is anything this team needs, it is an opener with a steady bat, and Malik has one. Out of 27 Tests played so far, he has opened the batting in seven, for an average of 42.60 in the opening slot that is a cut above his overall Test average of 37.57. Nor are these inflated figures: Malik has opened only against authentic opposition, including West Indies, England, India and Sri Lanka. His highest Test score of 148 not out was made as an opener in a defiant fourth innings against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Of the seven Tests in which Malik has opened, Pakistan have won three, drawn four, and never lost. Admittedly, a span of seven Tests is not much of a trend, but at the very least it is a good omen.

In ODIs too, Malik has fared better as an opener than lower down. Of his 167 ODI innings, 15 have been as an opener, with an average of 37.35 that compares favourably with his overall ODI batting average of 34.76. On three occasions he has opened against an associate nation, but the other matches have been against the likes of India, England, Sri Lanka, South Africa and New Zealand. Of his seven ODI hundreds, two have come as an opener (against New Zealand and India).

Indeed, Malik’s batting average as a Test opener is superior to the several other openers Pakistan have tried in the last few years, including Imran Farhat (32.26 from 28 Tests), Salman Butt (29.23 from 22 Tests), Taufeeq Umar (39.29 from 25 Tests), Khurram Manzoor (27.66 from six Tests), and Kamran Akmal (35.77 from six Tests).

And why else is he in the team, anyway? With Saeed Ajmal in the side, Malik’s offspin is redundant. Even if Ajmal gets replaced with Danish Kaneria for the Wellington Test, Malik’s spin will only be a back-up option.

On the other hand, here we are waking up with great anticipation at unearthly hours, only to find Pakistan with tormenting scorelines like 6 for 2. There is a gaping vacuum here and Malik should be man enough to fill it. He has been included in the team primarily as a batsman. It is only logical that he be used in the spot where not only has he performed the best, but also where his team needs him the most.

	Getting run out is a habit Mohammad Yousuf cannot seem to shake © Getty Images

If you watched the first ODI between New Zealand and Pakistan sitting somewhere in Pakistan, you would have heard a collective national groan when Pakistan’s total was 57 for 2. At that point, Mohammad Yousuf tapped a ball straight into the hands of short cover and took off for a single. That’s “short” cover, mind you – meaning that the fielder was well within the circle and ideally positioned to block the single. Nor was the fielder some uncoordinated slack. Yousuf has picked out the spry Martin Guptill, who nailed the stumps at the bowling end with a direct smash.

The groan preceded the run-out, because we all understood in a flash what was about to happen. The one person who appeared not to have grasped the moment, from the looks of it, was Yousuf himself.

The theory of running between the wickets is straightforward, and it has not changed in a hundred years. “One point in which many otherwise excellent cricketers fail is in the matter of judging runs,” wrote Ranjitsinjhi in The Jubilee Book of Cricket, published in 1897, anticipating the likes of Yousuf by over a century. The general idea is to play the ball into a gap and call your partner. If you play the ball towards a fielder, then the fielder should be some distance away for you to risk a run. Your vocabulary should be limited to “yes”, “no”, and “wait”.

Yousuf’s interpretation of running between the wickets represents a variation on this theme. His baffling strategy is to play the ball straight to a close-in fielder and take off. His vocabulary appears to consist of “yes”, “no”, and “wait” and “let us discuss when we meet in the middle of the pitch”. The result has been enough heart-wrenching run-outs to leave permanent psychological scars on an already jolted fan base.

A run-out is such a needless death. Why a highly accomplished batsman would keep throwing away his wicket like this beggars belief. It is clear, though, that it is a habit he cannot seem to shake. With Yousuf, this suicidal act has happened so often that you keep dreading the imminent whenever he is at the crease.

The typical scenario is a full-length delivery pitching just outside off. Yousuf bends forward and taps the ball towards cover or cover point. His action ends up almost being a lunge, in which Yousuf’s weight shifts so far forward that the process of standing up forces him to take a stride. The act of playing the stroke and setting off for a run merge into a seamless continuum.

Normally, a complex mix of variables goes into the decision of whether or not to run. Shot trajectory, field placement, fielder quality, consent of the non-striker, and indeed even the match situation enter into the calculation. In Yousuf’s case, it seems, the only real consideration is how far forward his centre of gravity has shifted. Now that I’m already afoot and out of the crease - he seems to be thinking - I might as well go for a run.

Out of 222 completed ODI innings, Yousuf has been run out 38 times, which amounts to 17% of all his dismissals. Put another way, every 6th dismissal for Yousuf is a run-out. If you want a comparison, this figure is more than twice the rate for Sachin Tendulkar, for whom only every 12th ODI dismissal is a run-out. The best way to master any endeavour is to learn from the experience each time something goes wrong. Yousuf has had ample experience in making mistakes while running between the wickets, but the only mastery he has shown is in refusing to learn from them.

Like a wildfire spewing flames towards the sky, it erupts uncontrollably when the mix is right. All you need are a few passionate and opinionated Pakistan fans, an atmosphere of spirited contention, and someone willing to light the match. As you can imagine, in Pakistan this isn't asking for much, and so the great debate erupts frequently and fervently.

Most people know instinctively which side they are on, and positions are staked out right away. The few, who start out genuinely neutral, discover very soon they are anything but. Before long, emotions rise to a crescendo and tempers begin to simmer. The exchange becomes intense, headed towards intractability.

The opening gambit is almost always the same, namely that Wasim Akram, who was once described as possessing the left arm of God, could move the ball both ways, sometimes in the same delivery. Footage of Akram swinging it like a yo-yo has left legions speechless, so this point is naturally impossible to refute. It can only be countered by a parallel argument which, if it is to survive the heat of debate, must be based on hard data.

This is usually the time for Imran Khan loyalists to respond with a trusted opening move of their own. Imran finished his Test career with a better bowling average than Akram - 362 wickets at 22.81 compared with Akram's 414 at 23.62. It's not a huge divide - Imran only gave 0.81 runs less per wicket than Akram - but over careers spanning two decades, such a sustained separation becomes significant. Imran's Test strike rate (53.7) and economy (2.54) are also better than Akram's (54.6 and 2.59); again, not by much, but Imran does come out ahead.

Akram's supporters know they cannot win if the battle moves to statistics. Although Akram's ODI figures (502 wickets at 23.52, SR 36.2, econ 3.89) are better than Imran's (182 wickets at 26.61, SR 40.9, econ 3.89), Imran's career was already half-over before ODI cricket at the international level really took off. Akram, by contrast, arrived when the ODI circuit had come into full bloom.

The argument for Akram's supremacy needs a visceral approach. In Pakistani cricket gatherings, it doesn't get more visceral than evoking the memory of March 25, 1992. Everyone who saw those two deliveries that castled Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis were astounded, and even today, if you watch them on YouTube, you cannot help shaking your head. Timing adds to the mystique - the two best deliveries of Akram's career, and what a moment to produce them.

Imran's camp fully understands the emotional weight of this appeal. They reach deep into their arsenal and come up with Christmas Day 1982. This is no ordinary reference: late afternoon in Karachi; the ball begins to reverse as the breeze blows in from the sea; Imran takes five Indian wickets for three runs in the space of 25 balls; which included Sunil Gavaskar, Gundappa Viswanath, Mohinder Amarnath, Sandeep Patil, and Kapil Dev. It's a formidable counter-response, but it can only go so far. A Test match (even one against India) is not the same as the final of the World Cup.

Some friends and I once had the opportunity to ask Javed Miandad where he stood on the great debate. Miandad's initial response was to insist on framing the question narrowly. So we did: Let's say you're having a net facing Akram and Imran, both of whom are at their peak; who would trouble you more? Miandad closed his eyes and for several seconds and appeared deep in thought. Then he gave his verdict: Akram. Why? Because he could move it both ways with greater skill than Imran. Of course, there's more to bowling greatness than bowling well in the nets, but Miandad wouldn't be dragged into the larger debate.

On another occasion, my fellow Cricinfo blogger Kamran Abbasi and I once found ourselves in the company of Sanjay Manjrekar and Ramiz Raja. This was in Multan during a Pakistan-Bangladesh Test that happened to be going through a rather dull period. Sure enough, someone lit the match, and arguments came pouring forth. Ramiz was championing Akram and his view ultimately prevailed, but it wasn't pretty.

It is probably true that Akram die-hards outnumber Imran's supporters in the great debate, and they also tend to be more passionate. Those who argue for Imran tend to be more clinical and academic, probably because the arguments in favour of Imran are themselves rather clinical and academic.

Most people acknowledge that Imran was a more committed bowler, who never gave less than 100%. Akram, for better or worse, is still remembered as the kind of guy who could pull up with a side strain on the morning of a World Cup quarter-final. Imran bowled many overs through a stress fracture of the shin. For about a year and a half - the second half of 1983 and all of 1984 - this injury robbed him of his best bowling days. Who knows how much more he would have achieved without this unfortunate interlude.

There is also the matter of opposition quality. Imran didn’t play any Tests against the likes of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and played a total of only two ODIs against them. But in Akram's case, 47 of his Test wickets (at 22.36) and 42 of his ODI wickets (at 20.92) have come from these teams.

For an amicable end to the great debate, you need a few people around who are willing to accept that the question of whether Akram or Imran was the greater bowler is complex and many-faceted. I was recently at a dinner party where the mood was right and the debate was kindled yet again. Arguments followed a predictable trajectory, and before long the dialogue had become intransigent. Our host, a moderate cricket follower skilled at diplomacy, brought closure when he said Akram was the greater bowler, but Imran was no less. I have memorised that line for the next iteration of the great debate.

	There may have been more to Younis Khan's candid admission that Twenty20 was 'fun' © Associated Press

At some point in the build up to this World Twenty20, Younis Khan would have assembled the rest of the Pakistan team think-tank to pore over the tournament's list of fixtures. Shoaib Malik would have been there along with Misbah-ul-Haq, Shahid Afridi and Kamran Akmal.The coach would probably have not been around, this being the kind of meeting where you only invite those you can call upon when it hits the fan out in the middle.

There would have been an intense seriousness to this meeting, a sober atmosphere that Pakistan's cricketers, with their trademark devil-may-care attitude, are loath to display in public. There would have been an implicit recognition of what was at stake. After the visiting Sri Lankans were attacked by terrorists in Lahore in March, John Stern, Editor of the Wisden Cricketer, questioned in an interview on CNN whether Pakistan would even be able to play in the World Twenty20. Stern's was only one prominent voice among many fussing about Pakistan's threat of cricketing isolation. The nucleus of Pakistan's team saw clearly, as indeed did the rest of the country, that the World Twenty20 would be their last chance to push back.

After digesting the schedule of fixtures for a few minutes, one of them would have pointed out, as is obvious to everyone now, that five victories could get you the title. A mere five victories, of which four need to be against authentic Test nations. In the event, Pakistan have had the easiest ride of the tournament so far, with wins against two associate nations, plus New Zealand, which has traditionally been the weakest of the authentic Test sides. By the looks of it the cricket gods are finally smiling, perhaps offering a long overdue break to the country that has seen more turbulence in the last two years than in the rest of its six-decade history.

Back at the pre-tournament meeting, Younis would have contemplated this campaign knowing he was up against much more than just cricketing opposition. He had to lift spirits, sharpen everyone's focus, and blot out the hype that inevitably accompanies the likes of India and Australia and was bound to undercut his own team's morale. He knew he had to prepare everyone by modulating expectations, which he delicately calibrated by announcing that reaching the semi-finals would be good enough. He would also have been mindful of the potential for the Daniel Vettoris of the cricketing world to behave as sore losers, and he would have been conscious of the deafening criticism that would erupt from Pakistan's unforgiving press and public at the first defeat. Younis knew he would need a terrific Plan B, something as powerful and galvanising as Imran Khan's 'cornered tigers' appeal from 1992.

After the Group B defeat to England, he unveiled it, telling a bemused media contingent that Twenty20 is 'fun cricket'. Younis was addressing his own team of course. Take it easy, close your eyes, relax. You can easily picture him sticking to the same theme as the toughest test yet awaits. Sure, its the semi-final and South Africa is some seriously tenacious opposition, but don’t let that get to you. Imagine you're just playing a league match in Lahore. Enjoy yourself.

	Wasim Akram's commentary has failed to measure up to his bowling © AFP

Wasim Akram was capable of bowling a truly nasty bouncer. Every now and then he would unleash it, targeting the center of the throat or the spot on the forehead right between the eyes. Even the most competent batsmen have acknowledged that there was no getting away from it. Like a guided missile, it just kept coming at you relentlessly.

Akram has now left the bowling crease and planted himself behind the commentator’s mike. One notes with a certain resignation that his commentary is not as penetrating or targeted as his bowling. I say ‘resignation’ and not disappointment, because it is impossible for Akram to disappoint. Even if he said nothing and just sat behind the mike and every so often we saw him smiling, that would make our day. Why? Because he’s Wasim Akram, that’s why.

Still, it would be pleasing and fitting if Akram’s commentary career carried some of the same zest and punch as his cricket career. In cricket, he moved the ball around as if he had it on a string and, when the mood was right, hit it miles with the bat. In contrast, his commentary seems the equivalent of gentle long hops delivered with an unmotivated, burdensome action.

To be fair, occasionally he will indeed say something quite insightful. He’ll scan the field and recommend an adjustment that leaves you fascinated. He will also occasionally entertain, saying something dismissive or curt in his signature Lahori drawl. More often, though, he shies from opinion and analysis and just passes on trivialities.

Of the three Pakistani ex-players currently on the international commentary circuit – Rameez Raja, Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram – Akram’s persona behind the mike is the most jarring and anomalous. Rameez’s commentary is pleasant and agreeable, more or less like his batting career. Waqar started out awkwardly as a commentator but somewhere along the way found his inner focus to deliver fluent and polished commentary peppered with zingers.

Even though Akram has been doing this for a while, he still seems an inhibited soul. It doesn’t help that he often gets partnered with Harsha Bhogle, a voluble man whose theoretical command of cricket is incisive as well as encyclopedic. This contrast with a more natural commentator makes Akram look even worse.

There is more to Wasim Akram than this. All of us who have followed his career and kept track of all the news he has generated and continues to generate, sense deep down that there is a far more interesting commentator in him yearning to break through. This inner commentator is more talkative, witty and opinionated. He is free of reserve and self-consciousness.

One possibility is that Akram isn’t adequately engaged in the commentator’s role, that he isn’t trying hard enough. The truth, I feel, is the reverse – he’s trying too hard. He’s not being himself. Someone needs to tell him to loosen up. Perhaps he’s been coached. If so, whoever has coached him has done him a disservice.

Unlike out in the middle, where there was a captain like Imran Khan to get the best out of him, behind the mike Akram is alone. Only he can pull himself out of this rut. He should get the sense of being in the spotlight out of his head and imagine he’s in a drawing room watching cricket on TV surrounded by friends. Wasim Akram was always at his best on the pitch when he let his natural flair and aggression come through. The commentators’ box is no different.

There is one scenario in which Pakistan's legal confrontation with the ICC over World Cup 2011 hosting rights could prove an intelligent move: if it forces both the ICC and Pakistan into a compromise that relocates the Pakistan-based games to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Indeed, this may well have been the ultimate strategic outcome in the mind of the PCB officials as they planned a litigious attack on the ICC.

Deep inside, even the PCB hierarchy understands that no visiting team will feel safe in Pakistan after the calamitous events of March this year in Lahore. Pakistan as a political and social entity has to enjoy a long run of peace and stability before the prevailing mood on that situation can be expected to change. But don't expect the PCB to admit as much; as the official protector of Pakistan cricket, it cannot afford to give the appearance of surrender.

The opportunity for a legal challenge to the ICC popped up unexpectedly for the PCB. It is only understandable that with the chips down and their backs to the wall, they will pounce on it. Unlike on previous occasions, when security concerns have been discussed, it appears that this time around due process was not followed. The PCB claims that relocating World Cup matches was not on the agenda of the recent ICC meeting, and when it was brought up, the PCB chairman Ijaz Butt was caught off guard. If this is true, then the ICC has no defence. Any law firm worth its salt – and DLA Piper, the group engaged by the PCB, is certainly one such – will smell blood and go for the kill.

Granted, Mr Butt should have done his homework on this topic. Granted, he and his aides should have been able to think on their feet and propose Dubai and Abu Dhabi as proxy venues. Had he done that during the meeting, it is possible that the compromise now being hoped for could have been reached without much fuss.

But even despite this missed opportunity, the PCB is in the rare position of having a strong hand. Pakistan's recent series against Australia has shown that the stadiums in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi, with fantastic facilities and full-throated crowd support, are highly credible alternate venues. True, they are outside the boundaries of South Asia, but flying times are convenient, with a flight from Karachi to Dubai taking about only as long as a flight from Karachi to Islamabad. There is some concern that the arrangement has proved more expensive for the PCB than expected, but added expense is hardly a driving concern if you are trying to salvage World Cup hosting rights and the prestige that comes with them.

Put yourself in the PCB's shoes. It deserves some empathy. Several commentators have observed that this legal confrontation between the ICC and the PCB helps no one. Nothing could be farther from the truth, because it certainly helps Pakistan. It gives the PCB an opening that, for the first time in this atmosphere of fear and terror, could enable them to force a compromise. For if the ICC failed to follow due process, it has few options. With DLA Piper on the case, we can be sure we will get to the bottom of this.