Pakistan's bowling attack could use more firepower © AFP

Pakistan, like all the major teams, have three banana skins to avoid to ensure qualification and they neatly sidestepped the first one. In their last two one-day series Pakistan have rallied well and developed a consistency about their cricket, which was continued at the cavernous Hambantota stadium.

The surfaces in the United Arab Emirates and New Zealand managed to replicate South Asian conditions, a factor that has helped ensure that Pakistan’s players are decently prepared. Familiar conditions help mask the vulnerabilities in Pakistan’s batting order, allowing the bowlers to make a decisive impact. And it is on that point that Pakistan face something of a dilemma.

The current selection, with batting in depth, is a healthy insurance policy for disaster against a minor nation but less suited to winning the trophy. The extra batsman is probably unnecessary. As the tournament progresses, the better teams will eye up an opening attack of Shoaib Akhtar (past his best) and Abdul Razzaq (short of pace) and lick their lips for a twenty-over run spree. Shahid Afridi might then turn to Mohammad Hafeez but the reaction in the opposition will be further salivation.

Luckily, the tournament format allows plenty of opportunity for tinkering provided those banana skins are stepped over. Bringing in Wahab Riaz in place of a batsman, probably one of the openers, would be the obvious option, with Kamran Akmal pushed up to open. In that scenario, moving up Umar Akmal to split Younis Khan and Misbah-ul Haq might offer more dash up front and maintain some solidity later on.

Pakistan have options. They are playing in conditions that suit them. They are playing with unity and the air of wronged men seeking vengeance. The team selection will soon reveal the extent of their ambitions, and an extra bowler would be a statement of intent.

For Pakistan’s aspirations of causing an upset, choosing too many batsmen might turn out to be the biggest banana skin of all.

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Shahid Afridi can dazzle with the ball and destroy with the bat © Getty Images

In the tournament’s early years, Pakistan cricket fans viewed the World Cup with fascination but reasonable expectations. Defeat in a semi-final was a minor triumph, as anybody but the West Indies winning the trophy was unimaginable. Those carefree days were banished by two related events. First, India’s shock success in 1983 gave everybody else hope and an insight into the unpredictability of limited-overs cricket. Thanks to India’s achievement, as well as much political intrigue, the right to host the 1987 World Cup was awarded to India and Pakistan.

When India and Pakistan lined up for their respective semi-finals, on home territory, low expectations had metamorphosed into expectant hysteria. The pressure was too much as co-hosts and co-favourites were defeated by unfancied teams from Australia and England; the cricket world’s upstarts put in their place by the founding nations.

The scars of those defeats burned long and deep, especially in Pakistan. India had already bagged their World Cup trophy. Pakistan had become perennial semi-finalists, mere onlookers. Happily, Pakistan quickly satisfied their desires with the iconic victory of 1992, but the disease of expectant hysteria had taken hold, reaching fever pitch at roughly four-year intervals.

Indeed, a thrilling quarter-final loss to India in 1996 followed by a gut-wrenching defeat in the 1999 final only served to intensify the illness, with expectant hysteria resurfacing in the World Cups of 2003 and 2007 despite hard evidence of a decline in Pakistan cricket and its cricketers.

I guess it would be still with us had it not been for the utter demoralisation of many Pakistan fans by the spot-fixing saga. With Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif in our ranks, we would be imagining that our bowling attack could storm the tournament. We would put our faith in the two Mohammads and the reverse-swing of Umar Gul to compensate for any deficiencies in fielding and batting.

Instead, the reality check is that the bowling attack is decent but unspectacular. Gul remains, and is supported by a fading Shoaib Akhtar and a bouncy, inexperienced Wahab Riaz. Shahid Afridi might still dazzle but Abdul Razzaq and Mohammad Hafeez are more prosaic bowling talents.

Expectant hysteria has burned itself out. Instead we wait for the next blow to the ribs in the shape of unpredictable calamity. But does that mean I am shorn of hope? Far from it. Great bowling attacks might win you a World Cup in England or Australia but not necessarily in the subcontinent. And when it comes to it, Pakistan have enough firepower and sufficient familiarity with the conditions to pose a threat. The batsmen might not send shivers down the spines of the opposition but they can thrive in these conditions, especially with the lower order ballistics of Afridi and Razzaq.

More importantly, Pakistan are wounded; Shoaib has said as much, and that is when they are most dangerous. And, in truth, other than the loss of Amir, they are not especially weakened. The players have a point to prove and a reputation to restore. The wayward influences have been expelled, we hope, and the team has pulled together in recent months, rewarded for old-fashioned virtues of determination and unity. Playing away from the pressure of frenzied home crowds might be of additional benefit, as will finding themselves in the weaker half of the first-round draw.

With Australia less dominant now than they were in the preceding decade, this is an open World Cup with much expectation centred on the prospect of a new World Cup winner being crowned after 12 years of Aussie rule. Australia might still confound us all, but any of the top eight cricket nations could lift the trophy. The format of the tournament will ease the passage of the big powers to the knockout stages, where anything could happen, even a Pakistan victory.

On form, India might well be favourites but they will have to contend with the debilitating effects of expectant hysteria. Pakistan have no such worries. The world of low expectations is a relaxing place to be except that teams with low expectations, in their differing ways, won every World Cup from 1983 to 1999.

The step from low expectations to expectant hysteria is conceptually gargantuan but, in the distorted reality of a sports fan, it is frighteningly short and easily goaded. My advice is to resist that perilous journey for as long as humanly possible, in essence the quarter-finals stage of World Cup 2011: March 23, or Pakistan Day, to be precise.

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Denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance: the five stages of the grief reaction that Pakistan fans have experienced over the spot-fixing controversy. Denial and anger were left behind in the English summer. Bargaining for a better outcome was almost exhausted by the Doha hearing and the criminal case launched by the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service. It may continue with an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. But now that we know the ICC’s verdict, the predominant sentiments are sadness and acceptance.

Once the News of the World videos and transcripts were released the future looked bleak for Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif, and Mohammad Amir. The integrity of cricket had to be protected, and the ICC had to do that by pressing charges. Encouragingly, a healthy proportion of Pakistan fans have shunned knee-jerk defence of their fallen heroes in favour of a desire to ensure that corruption is punished.

Appeals are inevitable. None of the punished cricketers will want to give up their best years in international cricket without a fight. The ICC process has been questioned at regular intervals as if to prepare the ground for such an appeal. And with the ICC tribunal’s admission that more flexibility in sentencing would be desirable, the defendants have a hope to cling on to.

Not that many Pakistan supporters have great sympathy for a reduction in sentences, except in the case of Mohammad Amir. Effectively, the suspended portion of the sentences aside, all three players will serve a five year ban; equity in sentencing that appears inequitable. Salman Butt might have got more and Mohammad Amir might have got less. ICC’s punishment needs to be severe but those passing sentence do require greater flexibility when determining bans.

Where all this leaves Pakistan cricket is an interesting question? It might have been a body blow to the image of cricket in Pakistan, but the last decade has seen that image dragged through the lowest gutter. Expectations of noble deeds have almost vanished. It might have been a body blow to the prospects of the team, but a team shorn of tainted cricketers has produced some of the best results in recent memory. Pakistan have lost some star quality and regained some spirit. As Liverpool football fans will avow after the loss of their £50 million pound star striker, Fernando Torres, no player is bigger than the team. Nobody is irreplaceable.

The verdict might have also brought the Pakistan Cricket Board to its knees, humiliated and broken as a governing institution. Those impressions of the PCB might still stand but the stark reality is that the cricket board and its head are immune to any pangs of conscience or acts of contrition. Strangely, as far as the PCB is concerned, the issue is entirely between the players and the ICC. A proper administration would now be deciding, based on its own evidence and judgement, on which players to punish further and which to support in appeals against their sentence.

But these are shameless days. Integrity is dead, corruption is king. Fans have become indifferent to the endless stream of controversy. The UK’s court case might also tarnish reputations beyond those already snared by the ICC. There is no vision of a brighter future in Pakistan cricket except in the performances of the current squad, who have rallied to salvage some honour from this miserable age. In that, at least, there is some hope. Indeed, I have not abandoned hope for Pakistan cricket but I have abandoned grief.

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