Alastair Cook, who wasn't part of England's Twenty20 plans, was added to the squad as injury cover, following his new-found one-day form. However, his inclusion has a certain vagueness attached to it because they didn't specify exactly who was injured, writes Barney Ronay in the Guardian.

It is tempting to conclude that this minor confusion is a consequence of emphatic success in the 50-over series sploshing over into the Twenty20. Given his status and his superlative form, it seems fair to conclude that England want Cook in the Twenty20 team. Injuries, as yet unspecified, have given an opportunity. But the lack of clarity gives a perception of baggage attached to the selection that still presents a minor distraction.

Simon Hughes, writing in the Daily Telegraph, takes a look at the hard work, new rules and bits of luck that have contributed to England's one-day triumph in the UAE.

Two new balls: The use of a new ball at each end is huge advantage to England, now [that] they have such an impressive seam attack. Stuart Broad and James Anderson were missing from the one-day series in India which England lost so heavily, leaving Steven Finn as a lone strike force. Now there is no let up on the Pakistan batsmen, who are anyway technically flawed.

In 12 months Alastair Cook has gone from non-selection to automatic pick in the ODI side. The Telegraph's Simon Hughes writes that his twin tons in UAE showed just how the England one-day captain has managed the transformation.

Cook is resourceful where his opening partner, Kevin Pietersen, is inflexible. Cook takes an over or two to assess the conditions and the pitch. In spite of the compulsory attacking field at the start – therefore with enticing boundary opportunities – he plays himself in. He does not look to assault the opening bowler as an Adam Gilchrist or a Sanath Jayasuriya might. He shapes to nudge and nurdle for a couple of overs and keep his wicket intact. He quickly sizes up the percentage shots and the productive areas.

Scyld Berry writes in the Sunday Telegraph that England must turn to pace to put Pakistan's batsmen on the backfoot in the one-day series coming up.

When the first of four day/night internationals begins on Monday, England will go the same way — downhill rapidly — if their pace bowlers cannot strike decisively. England have won a single competitive match since September, a Twenty20 international against India, and four more defeats would take their total to 12 to set against that solitary win.

In the Observer Barney Ronay writes that the series could be the last chance for Kevin Pietersen to rescue his flagging one-day career.

Pietersen's return at the top of the order is a reprise of the role he attempted, with some success, at the World Cup, before injury struck. It is also something approaching a final roll of the dice for a player once recognised as unquestionably England's top 50-over gun, but who has not scored an ODI hundred for three years and whose lustre as a match-winner has unquestionably dimmed.

In the Independent on Sunday, Stephen Brenkley writes that this will be a big series for Pietersen and Joss Buttler.

With tours to Sri Lanka and India coming up, Andy Flower has plenty to work to do with England's batsmen. With the exception of the relatively inexperienced Eoin Morgan, dropping even one of the senior players will be a big call because if one of them's left out now, the chances of a comeback are slim, writes Michael Vaughan in the Telegraph.

For the next eight months before India, Flower will be working on improving how the players pick off ones and twos. A lot of net sessions will be geared so the lads can play in the subcontinent. They have boundary options, but you have to be able to go down the wicket on these slow low wickets. You cannot punch the ball off the back foot as the old way of working the ball off a length for ones and twos is dangerous because of the pace modern spinners bowl at – Abdur Rehman was bowling at 56mph.

Dropped from the one-day squad after averaging just 8.50 in the three Tests in the UAE, Ian Bell is itching to rectify his game and make a strong comeback. In his column for the Independent, Bell wants to get to Sri Lanka ten days before their first warm-up game and work on his game against spin.

Physically, I don't feel as though I need a break. Some of the younger English players have been playing domestic cricket there and, if it's possible, I'd jump at the chance to do something similar. When you play on the subcontinent, it's vital to get used to the climate and the conditions. In Sri Lanka, I expect it to be hot and humid, so practising there would be far more useful than doing batting sessions in an indoor school.

Jonathan Agnew, writing for the BBC, says after the debacle in the UAE, England now have some serious thinking to do before the two Test matches in Sri Lanka in March and April.

I simply don't think its right that players can be picked match after match if they are not performing, and it would not be remotely right if the same top six rock up and play in the first Test in Galle because they have failed here. They need to give someone else an opportunity, because Sri Lanka would be a good chance to blood a young player.

Expectations of a run-soaked series on docile pitches were confounded by Pakistan's underestimated spin bowlers writes Vic Marks in the Guardian. Now, the England batsmen may be wondering, whether their Test careers are secure.

Batsmen, even the best ones, may be afraid of the odd unplayable delivery, but they fear even more not being able to work out how they are going to get their runs. Especially in an age when runs frequently gush at four per over they cannot bear the prospect of suffocation at the crease. On these surfaces – against highly skilled practitioners – the England batsmen could not fathom where they could score. That breeds a certain panic

Doubt can accrue in a batter's psyche like unwanted freight, and spin is often the greatest cause says Jon Hotten, writing in the The Old Batsman blog.

The UAE whitewash does not make England's batsmen bad players, writes Nasser Hussain in the Daily Mail. It means, Hussain writes, that they are not the finished article, and just because they have bashed Australia and India around, it doesn’t mean they have sorted out the game. Cricket has a habit of hitting back and biting you on the backside.

The case of Kevin Pietersen confounds me because he has performed against great bowling but in recent times has struggled against decent bowling. And I haven’t liked the sight of him and others staring at the big screen, shaking their heads after DRS verdicts. It’s the same for both sides. Work it out and get on with it.

Pakistan are in such an improbable high at the moment, in order to sustain their achievements they would have to wait months, writes Osman Samiuddin in the National. Their next assignment is in Sri Lanka in May and after that there is nothing until Tests against Zimbabwe and South Africa early next year.

By then, Misbah will be close to 39 and others such as Younis, Ajmal and Abdur Rehman are also getting on. In any case, a year is a particularly long time in Pakistan's cricket, and a stretch of inactivity unravels the tightness of a side like little else.

The frenetic fall of wickets and early finshes to the first two Tests in the UAE will have done little for the bank balances of the Pakistan Cricket Board or the local organising authorities, but the golf clubs of Dubai have probably done all right out of them, with the travelling supporters finding plenty of time to kill, writes Paul Radley in the National.

Is someone sat on the fast-forward button? This Test series was always supposed to be brief, with three matches to be played back to back, and at venues barely 80 miles apart. But this is getting ridiculous now. If this morning brings the same havoc as yesterday’s first session did, this could become the first Test match for the Twitter generation: all over in 140 overs. Hash tag: shockingbatting.

There's a lot of speculation that, following the twin failures in UAE, Eoin Morgan's 15-Test career might be over. Andy Bull writes in the Spin blog, that it is important that Morgan bounces back from his current predicament "because he is too talented for his Test career to be over already".

Right now the disparity between Morgan's performances in limited-overs and Test cricket is so great that it feels as though he is shaping up to be the next Michael Bevan, a brilliant one-day player whose flaws mean he in incapable of mastering Test cricket. With Bevan though, the suspicion was that his problems were technical – he could not find a method to cope with short-pitched bowling. Morgan's troubles seem to be in his head, as he struggles to find a way to adapt his game to the demands of Test cricket.

Abdur Rehman took 6 for 25 as England were rolled over for 72 © Getty Images

Mike Selvey writes in the Observer that England's old failings against spin has already put their top ranking in jeopardy. He also looks at what changes England's batsmen made in their bid to counter Pakistan's trio of twirlers.

Andrew Strauss, who for much of his innings stayed on the back foot and scored in his habitual areas square. Others, such as Kevin Pietersen, strive to use their height and get forward, knowing that the pace at which Abdur Rehman and Saeed Ajmal can bowl can catch batsmen all too readily on the back foot. Essentially, though, where pad play was once an integral part of technique against spin, the ball has to be played with the bat.

In The National Osman Samiuddin turns to Sufi theories and bad jokes as he tries to make sense of Pakistan's logic defying victory.

These are perfectly sensible explanations but I prefer one that draws from Sufism (and this may sound overblown at first and probably is even on reflection but we will stick with it). In these moments, they enter a state of Haal, a kind of temporary state of a different consciousness to the state normally inhabited.

They walk and act differently, with greater urgency and settle upon some central figures around whom they all whir in unison towards one central purpose.

In his column in the Mail on Sunday, James Anderson sums up how England are feeling.

The over-riding feeling was one of shock. Shock that we'd allowed a winning position to slip away so easily and shock that we'd allowed a pressure situation to get the better of us.

An editorial in the Express Tribune says that with this series win over the world's top-ranked side, Misbah-ul-Haq "now deserves to be elevated to the pantheon of great Pakistani captains".

In the Sunday Telegraph, Michael Vaughan says teams can't expect to win when only two of their top six batsmen are playing with confidence, and has some advice on how to tackle spin.

The best players of spin have the ability to score 360 degrees of the ground.

At the moment England have too many players who can only hit through 90 degrees. It makes it easier for Pakistan to defend the boundary leaving England with not enough options to take the pressure off.

England need to look at the way Misbah-ul-Haq plays the spinners. He plants his front foot down and either plays through extra cover or hits over the top. Unless you are a brilliant sweeper, that is the way to play.

Misbah-ul-Haq has been the architect of the series so far to a great extent with his stoic batting, writes Scyld Berry in the Daily Telegraph.

Misbah is not as good a player as Inzamam-ul-Haq, a consummate hooker who would have dealt with Broad’s bouncers. But Misbah has something of Inzamam’s lordly demeanour, and he is a far more impressive captain.

Out of Pakistan’s spot-fixing scandal, Misbah is the best thing to have come – along with the virtues he has inculcated in his inexperienced team. While Salman Butt is serving a 30-month sentence, Misbah is serving his country.

Monty Panesar made a good comeback to international cricket but Pakistan adapted to his tactics well in Abu Dhabi, writes Simon Hughes in the same newspaper.

Nasser Hussain looks back on an "excellent day" for England, in the Daily Mail.

Panesar deserved more for his hard work on the first day in Abu Dhabi, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

Dwindling crowds have put the five-day game in a crisis, says James Corrigan in the Independent on Sunday, but Pakistan's victory offers hope of reviving interest in the format back home.

The point is, it isn't Test cricket's fault that it finds itself in a modern world where the kicks must beinstant. So many Tests from that last half decade shows that it still has the propensity to excite and excite in a way which the upstart formats could never contrive. But as the players hunt down the £1m deals and as the fans go in search of high-five thrills, the senior game needs some help.

Scyld Berry, in the Daily Telegraph, calls England's performance with the bat in Dubai as their worst in Asia, but says there is hope of an improved display on a flatter track in Abu Dhabi though it can't be guaranteed.

Saeed Ajmal has planted insecurity into the minds of the England batsmen and, in Abu Dhabi, they'll need to use their minds to master his spin, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

Shoaib Naveed says all the controversy about Saeed Ajmal's action could be avoided if people realised that his bowling has nothing to do with how much he bends his elbow, but everything to do with how he uses his wrist. Naveed writes, in Dawn, that it is a myth that offspinners use their fingers to turn the ball. While most use their forearms, and Muttiah Muralitharan used his shoulder, Ajmal, Naveed says, uses his wrist, reversing the process a legspinner uses.

So, Ajmal, instead of using his wrist to pass on the ball to the fingers, (as Swann, or any conventional ‘offie’ would do) uses his wrist as the major body part imparting the spin. Getting the wrist in position for an off-break takes that extra fraction of a second, which in turn means he has the delayed, jerky action that is so hotly debated. This novel wrist-spinning style is also the reason why Ajmal has been able to stock up his bowling arsenal with a ‘skiddy’ straighter-one, or what he likes to term the teesra.

Andrew Strauss's England side played a bit like the one that was mauled in the 2006-07 Ashes whitewash, Ted Corbett writes in the Hindu of England's loss to Pakistan in Dubai. England got their tactics wrong, Corbett says, which was reflected by the way their attacking batsmen went into their shells.

England's top batsmen submitted passively, stroke-less and without an attempt at assertion, for two totals that were not worthy of world dominance. It may be winner in its comfort zones of home and Australia, but as soon as it flies east of the Suez it collapses as if it was batting in a sandstorm.

Nasser Hussain, in the Daily Mail, says England's batsmen can hardly complain about their poor performance in the defeat in Dubai, given they had four months of rest, and the major problem is their inability so far to read Saeed Ajmal.

The key to the last three days is that England still haven't been able to pick Saeed Ajmal's length. He can change his pace so quickly from his wrist and England just do not seem able to read his action.

People were still going back to full-length deliveries. So much of modern cricket is easier for batsmen, mainly because of the dearth of great fast bowlers, but the decision-review system and umpires' willingness to give lbws on the front foot makes it harder to play against decent spin.

The dispiriting thing about this defeat is that it came when one thought England had put their days of the dreaded collapse behind them, says Martin Samuel in the same newspaper.

Andrew Strauss' performance was a worry and how he recovers and picks himself up will depend on his self-belief, writes Scyld Berry in the Daily Telegraph.

England bowled well enough but their batsmen made Pakistan look more threatening with the ball than they should have been, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

We have finally got what we wanted from Pakistan - a rather uneventful day at the cricket - highlighting just how far they have come from the spot-fixing summer, writes Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail.

There was nothing here to question, nothing to arouse suspicion even in the most cynical observer. Scoring patterns were not like a particularly badly executed foxtrot — slow, slower, quickest, quick, slow — and while there were some unexpected dismissals, Jonathan Trott bagging the wicket of a settled Younis Khan for instance, there was nothing disquietingly unfathomable on view. And some may feel that is a pity. They may think that it was Pakistan’s maverick nature that made them such compelling opponents. Yet as so much of that eccentricity aroused justified suspicion, it became colour we could do without.

Given the sport’s oldest format is being played in one of its newest and most high-spec venues, day 2 in Dubai was a strike back for the good old days, writes Paul Radley in the National.

This England team live by the mantra that if you stand still you will be overtaken. Everything about their cricket is thoroughly modern, from their high-visibility, brilliant white kit, to their bleep test fielding drills with musical accompaniment. Their methods obviously do work. They are the world’s best side in an era in which macho players can score Test match hundreds in 69 balls. By stark contrast, Misbah-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s insouciant captain, barely moved out of second gear yesterday – and off-white gear it is, too.

The lack of crowds in Dubai - one of the stranger settings for Test cricket - is not a fair indicator of Pakistan's interest levels in the longest format, writes Scyld Berry in the Telegraph.

You could seize on this figure as evidence of the decline, or imminent death, of Test cricket. But it would be fairer to observe that, back in Pakistan, Karachi and Lahore have not drawn Test crowds since the Seventies, and Faisalabad only did so in the Eighties because the municipality ran the Test match and forced local factories to buy tickets.

On deeper inspection, the more unsettling aspect of watching Pakistan over the past year - like the feeling, post-advertising, that what you've got is not what you were sold but will have to do - has not been their generally attritional, even dour approach. It has been that they have spun their way through it, writes Osman Samiuddin in the National.

Only twice have spinners bowled more balls in a year than the last, once in 2000 and once in 1987, a year that belonged to the modest duo of Iqbal Qasim, Tauseef Ahmed and the gloriously immodest Abdul Qadir. Partly circumstances have necessitated this, the loss of two opening bowlers and matches on surfaces where spin is more durable. But it is not as if there is a dearth of pace men suddenly; with Umar Gul, Junaid Khan, Wahab Riaz, Aizaz Cheema, and others at the door, there can't be. Yet that they have felt secondary to proceedings is mostly because the trio of Mohammad Hafeez, Abdur Rehman and Saeed Ajmal has been so outstanding.

The mystery about Saeed Ajmal's day in Dubai was not his teesra but how England were caused such embarrassment on a surface as harmless as an empty pincushion, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

No, England were undermined, not by the teesra, but by themselves and it was not so much a failure of technique, but of the mind. One of the problems when facing slow bowling is that there is time to think. So the brain comes into play as much as any instinctive hand/eye co-ordination. And England batted brainlessly, making poor choices all along the way. Ajmal, bowling no rubbish, just sat back and waited for another batsman's error. In Test cricket on a true surface it is usually necessary to wait a bit longer.

Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan and Graeme Swann all became the leading Test wicket-taker in a calendar year by spinning the ball a lot. Saeed Ajmal achieved the same last year by hardly spinning the ball at all, writes Simon Hughes in the Telegraph.

Ajmal has some parallels with Warne. He is able to turn the ball both ways and talks mischievously of ‘new’ deliveries, but in fact he primarily owes his success, like the great leg-spinner, to a high degree of accuracy and subtle variations of angle and degrees of spin.

Also in the Telegraph, Steve James says: "Ajmal’s action has been heavily scrutinised before, reported even. Indeed when it was cleared in 2009, the ICC report said: "whenever Ajmal bowls in a match in the future, his action will be under the scrutiny of the match officials". But, of course, there is now a 15-degree toleration in operation. I could not tell you whether Ajmal’s arm bends more than that in certain circumstances. It needs to be monitored, but for now it should not detract from a stellar effort."

In the Independent, James Lawton says: "Ajmal, who did not bowl a Test delivery until he was 31, not only achieved career-best figures of 7 for 55 with beautifully delivered off-spin leavened by the fabled doosra he inherited from his compatriot Saqlain Mushtaq on a wicket that offered such notable run-hoarders as Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen the equivalent of an empty supermarket trolley and a free pass through check-out. What he also did, with a smile that on such occasions is nearly as wide as the Punjab, is suggest we might indeed be in the middle of one of the most astonishing developments anywhere in world sport. This, of course, is the rebirth of a great cricket nation."

Stephen Brenkley, writing in the Independent, says Pakistan have rebuilt considerably since the scandal-marred England tour in 2010, ensuring consistency in team selection under Misbah-ul-Haq. But the behaviour of both teams, he says, will be closely scrutinized for signs of friction.

Pakistan seem, in short, to have got their act together. But that will not prevent an air of suspicion and intrigue around the Dubai International Cricket Stadium tomorrow. Misbah and Mohsin are trying desperately to move on. They have convinced their colleagues to forget the past and England too seem anxious to stress that what's gone is gone.

It may just be that Pakistan have pulled back from the brink of eternal disarray. Truly, it seems that being the pariahs of world cricket, the one activity above all that makes their nation special, was no fun any longer.

Nasser Hussain, the Daily Mail, gives England a slight edge in the UAE.

Stuart Broad, in the same newspaper, says there will still be some "negative feelings" over the events of 2010 but that, and the history between the teams, won't distract England from the task at hand.

Andy Bull, writing in the Guardian, says Pakistan have been dogged by controversy in recent years but changes in the regime have sparked a positive transformation.

Misbah has now been in charge for 12 Test matches, a longer run than anybody has managed since Inzamam-ul-Haq retired. Since he took over his team have been unbeaten in six Test series, and have won more one-day internationals than any other side. Under Misbah's captaincy Pakistan have adopted an avowedly pragmatic approach. It is not winning him fans, but nor is it losing him matches.