WHAT a hiding Pakistan took and but for the weather, the match might have ended inside four days. No excuses please, not even the horrible decision against Inzaman-ul-Haq. Sri Lanka played total cricket and the commitment was so tangible, one could almost touch it. Not so Pakistan who looked out of sorts and in the words of P.G. Wodehouse “if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”

Waqar Younis has denied reports of disharmony in the team and I am glad that he has done so and although one should not read too much into body-language, the Sri Lankans seemed to be enjoying themselves, there was a stoop to the shoulders of the Pakistanis. One obvious reason for this could be that the Sri Lankans were winning and the Pakistanis were on the back-foot, throughout the match.

Great pains were taken to prepare the wicket and because some grass had been left on it, it was described as a green-top and the expectation was that the ball would fly about. I don’t think one can change the fundamental character of a wicket by leaving some grass on it.

In the end, it was a typical Gaddafi Stadium wicket which got slower, with the occasional ball keeping low and to no one’s surprise Muttiah Muralitharan was the bowler of the match while our own Saqlain Mushtaq was turning his arm over, along with Wasim Akram, for PIA in the one-day competition.

Wasim had not been picked by the selection committee because it was not satisfied about his fitness but Saqlain was in the squad and was, therefore, dropped by Waqar and his think-tank. This meant that Pakistan had decided to go into a Test match without a specialist spinner and in this particular case, one of the best spinners in the world.

Both Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi were played more for their batting and were not seriously bowled. I found Saqlain’s omission particularly surprising as the Sri Lankans have so many left-handers including Kumar Sangakkara who scored a double century.

The Australians have stripped the captain of any say in the selection of the playing eleven. I am not in full agreement with this because a captain is the one who is held responsible if things go wrong and should have