- Pakistan whitewashed in T20Is
The 3rd T20I in Lahore would not have decided anything, for Sri Lanka had already won the series by virtue of having won the first two matches. Pakistan was playing for honour, something enhanced by two factors. First, and probably most important, this was the second tour by a foreign team (Zimbabwe series in 2018), after 10 years when in the last tour, in 2009, the Sri Lankan team was attacked by terrorists in Lahore. Second, it was a home series, before a cricket-hungry home crowd. It must not be forgotten that the full-strength Sri Lankan team is rated eighth in the world, and Pakistan is at the top in T20Is. To add insult to injury, Saturday’s defeat took place at the hands of a Sri Lankan team selected to ensure everyone who came on tour, got to play. Yet Pakistan still muffed it. It was the first time they had been set a target which could have been reached without any superhuman feats. It was still too many runs given away by the Pakistani bowlers.
The result was expected by those who say that Pakistan’s top two assignments, the head coach’s job and the chief selector’s, should not be combined in a single person. This is especially so where that person, Mr Misbah-ul-Haq, was not that long ago captain of the national team. As a matter of fact, Mr Haq engaged in some selection choices which did not work, and there seemed to be episodes of giving deadbeats another chance. The two jobs were separate as recently as this summer, during the World Cup, when Mr Mickey Arthur was head coach and Mr Inzamam-ul-Haq had been chief selector. That combination didn’t get Pakistan to the semi-finals of the tournament, but they made it further in the tournament than anyone had hoped given the side’s abysmal start. Many weaknesses have been exposed, and perhaps the most glaring has been the failure of the captain, Sarfraz Ahmad, to justify his selection as a batsman, especially one with aspirations of batting so high up the order. Many changes are needed before the coming T20 world championship. Perhaps it is better to find them out now, rather than to have them exposed cruelly in mid-tournament.