Misbah-ul-Haq is yet to lose a Test since taking over the Pakistan Test captaincy © Getty Images

Test wins for Pakistan are rare pleasures. The last time they enjoyed two in succession was in 2005, and the wins were five months apart. The last time Pakistan won back to back Tests in a series was against Bangladesh in 2003. Four wins in the last twenty Tests speaks for itself.

Pakistan fans are long-suffering but never patient. Each twist and turn is dissected in microscopic detail. But despite innumerable setbacks, the only event to diminish their passion for cricket has been the demoralising spot-fixing drama of this last year.

Now, out of the wreckage of the scandal, Pakistan’s current team has emerged with surprising resilience. A seemingly decimated and dishevelled national squad has produced a creditworthy drawn series against South Africa followed by a rapid destruction of New Zealand in the first Test in Hamilton. Win or lose the final Test, Pakistan will only have lost one of their last four Test series — and that loss was possibly in the most traumatic series in Pakistan’s history.

In these difficult times, Pakistan’s Test statistics are worth pondering. For all the focus on limited-over internationals, and everybody’s assumption that the shorter form is Pakistan’s natural game, perhaps Test cricket offers a better route to salvation. Shahid Afridi’s preference for the shorter formats is understandable but is that best for Pakistan cricket?

A strong Test team offers a much firmer foundation for success in all formats, while players who excel at Twenty20 cricket often offer little in Test cricket. When Pakistan won the 1992 World Cup it was with attacking Test-style bowling. When Pakistan were a strong Test team in the 1980s and 1990s, they were also strong challengers for each World Cup.

The benefit of one-day cricket for Pakistan, in recent years in particular, is that it has helped gloss over the deficiencies in technique and temperament that can be exposed at Test level. As such T20 and ODI cricket have become the measures of success; Test cricket a neglected form.

Yet the preference for one-day cricket is damaging the resurrection of Pakistan cricket and a strong Test team should be the Pakistan Cricket Board’s top priority, above winning the next World Cup or T20 World Championship. Yes, we should want success in those tournaments but as a by-product of a strong Test team, not at the expense of it.

With the third best win/loss ratio in Test cricket, Pakistan have a record to be proud of, defend, and build upon — and that despite the calamity of the last decade. This statistic alone places Pakistan above India and South Africa in the all-time list, although some way behind Australia and England.

The recent consolidation in Test cricket — consolidation is all it is as wins have been few — might be brief but it suddenly exists. Pakistan aren’t a great side, they aren’t even yet a good side, but they have shown some resilience and a splash of potential. Whether this attitude has emerged in response to the adversity of last summer or thanks to the absence of bad influences, will only emerge in time. Still, it should remind Pakistan’s administrators and cricketers where their priorities should lie.

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	Asaf Ali Zardari, the President of Pakistan © AFP

To the President of Pakistan,

We, the supporters of Pakistan cricket, demand an immediate end to the systematic destruction of Pakistan cricket.

Cricket is the single-most visible embodiment of the aspirations of the global Pakistani nation. Our cricketers are the most visible ambassadors of an embattled country. Cricket fans are representative of every walk of Pakistani society. The history of Pakistan as a nation and a cricket team is intertwined, and some might say cricket is a mirror reflecting the state of the nation.

We care about the present and the future of Pakistan cricket because we care about the present and the future of Pakistan itself.

Successive regimes of the Pakistan Cricket Board, under the patronage of the President of Pakistan, have indulged in nepotism, cronyism, and financial mismanagement, to name a few misdemeanours. The cricket board has been run unprofessionally in an age of professional international sport. Decision-making has been for the benefit of the individuals representing the cricket board rather than for the national cricket team or the hundreds of millions of cricket fans from all countries who support the Pakistan cricket team.

The result of this systematic mismanagement has been the isolation of Pakistan cricket from the international cricket community and the destruction of Pakistan as a force in the world of cricket. The Pakistan cricket team once made us proud, it is now the starkest example of how to waste the natural abilities, talents, and resources of the Pakistani people.

We demand that cricket does not follow squash and hockey, sports that we once dominated. Instead, we demand that the current cricket board of amateurs is disbanded and replaced by professionals fit to run a 21st century international sports organisation.

We demand that the current crop of exciting players, like Mohammad Aamer and Umar Akmal, has the hope of playing in a national team that makes Pakistan cricket great again and the supporters proud.

We demand that cricket puts its house in order and becomes a shining example of how to revitalise a Pakistani institution.

We demand that the patience of millions is rewarding with action.

As your predecessors knew, the success of the team is also a judgment on the success of your presidency.

Save Pakistan cricket.

Dil Dil Pakistan.

(If you support this letter, join the Facebook group/petition I've set up called 'A million people to save Pakistan cricket." Follow this link)