Shaharyar M. Khan may be possibly right that there is no need to press the panic-button as yet but one hopes that he is not deaf to the ringing of alarm bells, The Sydney Test is still in progress as I write but Pakistan is in a familiar situation-on the edge of a precipice and hanging by a thread. The weather can come its rescue or some new found self-belief.

The tour of Australia has been a disaster, not simply because Pakistan has been outplayed by a vastly superior team but by the number of injuries. This would normally reflect poorly on the level of fitness but no one in the team management or the PCB can say for sure how many of the injuries are genuine and how many are merely in the mind, an unwillingness to guts it out.

The nature of some of the injuries seems vague. Inzamam is the captain of the team and he has missed two Tests in a three-Test series because he has some back trouble. Did he develop this 'back trouble' in Australia or did he take this troubled back with him? I have no doubt that he will be fit for the VB series.

Abdul Razzak has a "mystery" illness and the doctors have not been able to solve the mystery. Here I have no doubt that he will read the last page of the mystery novel and find out who the villain was and there will be no mystery left and he will be fit to play.

It goes to attitude. My mind goes back to Malcolm Marshal who bowled in a Test match with his left-arm in plaster and took seven wickets including a caught and bowled.

There are other examples of exemplary courage. It burns the hell out of me that both Inzamam and Razzak are in the top bracket of the ill-advised central contracts that were signed just before the team left for Australia.

Against the socio-economic conditions of the country and the salary-structure of even the best paid jobs, what these cricketers are getting by way of salaries alone through central contracts (all other perks are extra) goes beyond the generosity of a Hatim Tai. And look at the cricket that they have played, the colossal defeats at Perth and Melbourne and we are holding our breath for the result at Sydney. So many people have telephoned me and they belong to all walks of life wanting to know what has gone wrong with the team.

I have tried to fob them off with technicalities (" nothing has a greater hold on the human mind than nonsense fortified by technicalities") but they are not buying because they are watching the cricket on television.

They are able to see that there has been a collapse of leadership on the field and in the dressing-room and there is no one present who can lift the team and put some fire in its belly.

The serious part of this tour is done with and the VB series remains and it's fairly meaningless considering that it was the West Indies that won the ICC Champions Trophy, not Australia nor England, the two best teams in the world with India not far behind.

Pakistan's next tour will be India and the PCB will have to abandon its "softly, softly" approach and will need to show leadership of its own. It will need to ask itself whether the present level of commitment is acceptable for what will be a far tougher tour? Who will raise the level.

Inzamam as captain is low on energy and allows the game to drift away. Yusuf Youhana has the right energy level but is low on the cunning that a captain has to have and also a commanding presence.

In Australia's first innings (and it could be their only innings) Pakistan bowled 133.2 overs. Danish Kaneria bowled 49.3 overs and Shoaib Akhtar only 15 overs. This seems not quite right. It is possible that Shoaib was not quite fit.

There are some positives, Salman Butt, Danish Kaneria, Kamran Akmal, Yasir Hameed and despite the hammering he took from Adam Gilchrist in one over, I thought Mohammad Asif showed promise. We must not allow these positives to dissolve.

It is entirely possible that Pakistan can play out of their skins and still make something of this Sydney Test. I wish it happens. How I wish it happens. A word about Adam Gilchrist's innings. I have seen better Test innings being played but those have been by batsman of the caliber of Vivian Richards and our own Javed Miandad. But Adam Gilchrist is in a class of his own.

He put the Pakistan bowling to the sword and comfortably made up the two hours that were lost at the start of the third day. The irony is that the bowling could not be faulted. It was one of those days when an alchemist could transmute lead into gold. Nor should the bowling of Kaneria go without rich praise.

It's not just his haul of wickets but his willingness to go on and on. Ranjhan Madugalle, the match-referee is a good friend of mine. He was captain of the Sri Lankan Under 19 team and my son Javed was captain of the Pakistan Under-19 team and they played against each other. I think Ranjan was harsh with Kaneria. It's not like him to be a drill sergeant.