WITHIN 45 minutes of play on the fourth morning Pakistan succumbed to yet another Test defeat and with it another series loss, inclusive the one in the United Arab Emirates against New Zealand last month.

The latest debacle makes it three losses on the trot which neither helps Pakistan in their Test ranking nor in their build up to be ranked as a high profile team which indeed needs to be probed at all level from the training methods to their fitness and selection of the team.

Playing various combination of players and changing batting orders on regular basis does not help nor does leaving out players in form at domestic level and relying on underperforming individuals despite their run of failures.

Successful teams at international level try and organise themselves in ironing out where the fault lies. Unfortunately this is not being investigated or analysed — in Pakistan’s case — to detect where we have been lacking in form and in quality.

In the last two Tests played here in South Africa, Sarfraz Ahmed and his men have been utterly disappointing as far as their batting is concerned. There have been an odd fifty here or so by the likes of Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam, Sarfraz himself and Asad Shafiq but the most convincing player in the middle has been Shan Masood of all from whom we least expected to be.

Failures of our opening batsmen Imam and Fakhar Zaman are being the most worrying of all which left the others struggling in the order to be able to consolidate themselves to take Pakistan innings to a respectable total.

We know though that it is not easy stuff to cope with the bouncy tracks of South Africa or Australia, especially when faced with fire and fury of pace, bounce and also lateral movement off the pitch to go with it.

But that certainly does not leave a team with an excuse to get away with. As professional cricketers or coaches and trainers it is important to handle all situations and in every situation or conditions.

It is alright to say that we at our disposal have one of the best bowling side with Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Abbas, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Yasir Shah around. But it does not really help unless our batsmen show their grit and gumption to compliment them and that where the Pakistan team has been lacking all through this series as in the past against New Zealand.

In 10 possible days in two Tests here barely only six of them have been possible because of the way Pakistan batting catapulted into submission by the South African pace bowlers which is even worrying for our team when comes the third and final Test at the Wanderers in Johannesburg next week.

Pakistan having lost the series already can admonish themselves with a lot better outing in the middle so far than we have expected from them.

Also wickets in this part of the world have not been of ant assistance to the spinners the reason why Faf du Plessis depended on his pace battery leaving out Keshav Maharaj.

Yasir is considered one of the best wrist spinners in the world but at the moment never for one moment he looked like even beating the bat and that really was another handicap with which Pakistan had to suffer.

Let us admit then that measure for measure Sarfraz and his team has not been a match for the home side which was predictable right from the start of this three-match series.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2019