Pakistan’s problems

Pakistan’s pace bowlers were supposed to dominate the Tests. Not only did that not happen, Pakistan can’t even blame injuries. Shoaib — the only recognised threat — survived almost till the end, Sami played right through. Shabbir was the only first team choice to fade away and he was the third seamer. Umar Gul was not an option, otherwise he would have played the first Test. Iftikhar and Rana Naved were not options. Also, there was no variety on offer. All right-armers; two fast and rest basic medium pacers and nothing more

ALL SPUN OUT

Saqlain and Mushtaq Ahmed — not even discussed through the series — are out of the picture. Shoaib Malik is around, but not yet Test material. Kaneria is, but he is yet to evolve beyond ‘promising’. Not good enough unless we play on WACA-like pitches.

2-MAN BATTING LINE-UP

Pak banked on an inexperienced batting line-up, with Inzamam and Youhana the only experienced players. Younis Khan was left out. The opening pair was also a problem, where Pakistan tom-tommed the success of Imran Farhat and Taufeeq Umar in recent times. Farhat came good in one innings but Umar didn’t

MISSING THE BASICS

As experts on TV harped on incessantly, hardly any Pakistani batsman ‘applied’ themselves. Not one of them, except Asim Kamal at Lahore and Pindi and Youhana at Multan, looked like they wanted to hang around and play Test cricket. Which is why on at least four occasions in the series, Pakistan experienced batting collapses that realised four/five wickets instead of the usual one or two

OLD-STYLE COACHING

Coaching by instinct and being successful at it is a thing of the past. Miandad might have been a hit in the 1980s. But in the age of laptops and statmen, teams can’t succeed on instinct alone. The Pakistanis didn’t have a lot of technological help, evident in their lack of planning in dealing with particular batsmen or bowlers. Apart from figuring out Laxman’s weakness against the ball pitched up on middle, nothing else looked remotely rehearsed