Pakistan's Brilliance

I mentioned in an earlier post how it was Pakistan's brilliance at crucial moments in the series that has resulted it going in their favour 2-0. Just to expand further on that. We knew that Pakistan could always produce moments of brilliance. Especially their amazing knack of causing a collapse out of nowhere the moment one wicket fell. That was exactly what they did both in Multan and in Lahore.

But the difference this time was that brilliance was complemented by methodical, meticulous hard work. For large amounts of time in the games, for days, in fact for all but the decisive sessions, Pakistan fought. There were times when they fought a losing battle, most notably in Multan, times when they fought from the front (like in Lahore) times when they fought on par. But importantly, they fought on. England never surrendered until Pak finally produced that moment of brilliance when they were simply outclassed.

Which is why, I strongly disagree with those slamming the English performance. Because I honestly think they didn't play too badly, in fact, played good solid cricket and matched Pakistan for long periods of time. It was only at those aforementioned decisive turns that they were left with no answers.

It is no problem competing with teams who produce such moments without backing it up with all the hard work. Hence, Pakistan never really seemed invincible like Australia. But now that they have got an ideal mix of the two, they could turn out to be extremely tough opponents. Of course, it remains to be seen how long this will last.

I haven't really thought too much as yet about India's tour there, but I remain fairly confident. ;-)