THE taste of victory has rarely been sweeter for Pakistan than against Australia in the second Test here at the Zayed Cricket Stadium where Misbah-ul-Haq’s men not only won the match by a record margin of 356 runs, the best against any country in terms of runs, but also made a clean sweep of it.

It was convincing more so for the fact that Misbah’s brigade had taken on an opposition which only recently had annihilated England in the Ashes, and who were expected to hand in a similar drubbing to the under-rated Pakistan team.

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This richly-deserved series victory by Pakistan in a ‘home’ series after a long gap of twenty years will certainly go down as one of the best even when one takes into account a series against England here a couple of years ago when Pakistan struck with as much abundance to achieve a similar result taking the series 3-0.

This success here now moves them up the ladder in the ranking — from six to three — and that too is no less an achievement in itself. The more we savour this the more it will be uplifting.

An elated Misbah, who rated this 2-0 series win over Australia higher than the 3-0 series sweep his side inflicted on England in 2012, was not alone in giving credit to his bowlers but even Michael Clarke conceded that Pakistan bowling overall was tremendous. “Both Zulfiqar Babar and Yasir Shah bowled superbly as well as the Pakistan pace bowlers who kept a good line and length,” said Clarke.

Clarke was surely not off the mark saying that because in my experience of watching Australia I have rarely seen such dominance by spinners against them than in 1988-89 series at home when Iqbal Qasim, Tauseef Ahmed and Abdul Qadir shared 34 wickets amongst them in a three-match series which Pakistan won 1-0.

Or when Mike Gatting’s England were plummeted into submission by Qadir, Iqbal and Tauseef who bagged 45 wickets between them in Pakistan’s 1-0 home series victory in 1987. Qadir’s tally of 30 wickets in that three-match series was a mesmerising performance.

Here in this series the Pakistan spinners, though inexperienced at international level, were no less penetrative as they weaved the web around the struggling Australian batsmen sharing 30 wickets among them in a two-match series which indeed did the trick for Pakistan.

Zulfiqar and Yasir were not doubt a revelation to all of us as they were for the Australian batsmen as they prodded and nudged looking for spin and turn which at times went straight to knock their stumps out or curled to beat their bat when they least expected.

That was the kind of quality which brought Australia to their knees as Zulfiqar and Yasir claimed 26 wickets between them.

It was befitting no doubt to see bowlers compliment the deeds done by their batsmen. I will not be wrong to say that primarily it was Pakistan’s consistency with the bat which really made Misbah’s men take the upper hand in the series.

Younis’ record-breaking feats with the bat as he plundered runs; Misbah’s record breaking fifty and hundred to go with and the batting of Sarfraz Ahmed, Ahmed Shehzad, Asad Shafiq and that of Azhar Ali was undoubtedly had a lot to do in what Pakistan achieved in the end.

Published in Dawn, November 4th , 2014