A defeat at Christchurch two years ago in the final Test after Pakistan had won two Tests on the trot and emphatically too, a massive 324 runs beating at Johannesburg against South Africa in the one-off Test and then an innings defeat at Harare against Zimbabwe only a few days later which sparked the fixing and bribery controversy found an echo after the defeat at Faisalabad. Without casting aspersions on the team which somehow failed to come to the expectations of the cricket loving public and in no way denying the merits of the respected visitors excellence, it is common knowledge that outside elements have their own axe to grind.

Even in normal circumstances Pakistan is known to have flunked. They floundered at Headingley in the early seventies in Australia a couple of times and in the West Indies too but then we only had stars and no team, individuals with diverse interest and angles with an eye on self projection. That is why Pakistan could manage to win only one Test series overseas and that too against New Zealand in the late seventies.

Therefore it is nothing new really that Pakistan has once again let a golden moment slip. There may not have been something fishy in that but the way our players threw away their wickets and failed to rise to the occasion was quite embarrassing, to say the least. For this debacle the people who trained boys were also to blame.

Surely the humiliating defeat in the third Test has now come to them as a rude awakening. Chopping and changing the team every now and then has brought little and no result. It has unsettled a team which has started to emerge alongside the best. Now that they will be faced with the best like Sri Lanka, South Africa and West Indies in the one-day quadrangular they will be once again with a new captain and a changed side. That will not do them any good unless they really play to their full potential which they seldom do.