One hundred and seventy runs was the margin of Pakistan’s defeat in the first test against Australia, and strangely, the cold numbers felt both unkind and generous to the gulf between the sides. On the one hand, Australia declared twice, and we can only imagine what the actual margin would have been if they had finished even one of their innings. On the other, Pakistan actually fought the third day to a draw and outright won the fourth day, suggesting that they were not as far behind as the 170-runs figure implies.

Either way, Pakistan must field a better side at Sydney to have a chance. The most obvious change is to discard Abdur Rauf who, bless his heart, is clearly not made for test cricket. He definitely has a future modeling hair products, but no future, unfortunately, in international cricket. There are some players who break into the side and do badly, but still display some promise. For instance, Mohammad Asif’s first three bowling figures in test cricket were 0-72, 0-16 and 1-103, but many (including the late Bob Woolmer) thought he was the real deal. Sadly, Rauf does not convey this impression in the slightest; the only sense in which he was an all-rounder was that he could neither bowl (match figures of 1-119), bat (his backing away to the leg side against the Aussie quicks was the most cringe-worthy thing I’ve seen on a cricket field in a while), nor field (let’s put it this way: Shane Watson likes him a hell of a lot better than he likes Mohammad Aamer). He must be banished.

The difficult question, of course, is who replaces him? Pakistan can go in one of two directions. If they want to play two spinners in Sydney – historically a turning wicket – they can bring in Kaneria, who is now fit, for Rauf. In that scenario, Pakistan will be left with just two seam-up options, and already Asif and Aamer have done too much bowling in the last six months. Aamer, in particular, is at serious risk of picking up an injury when you combine the fact of his slim build with the number of overs he’s bowled since the Twenty20 World Cup in England. And something about the idea of playing against Australia in Australia with just two quick bowlers is really scary.

The other option is to make a double change: Kaneria in for Ajmal, and Umar Gul in for Rauf. My view is that this would be a better combination, especially when you consider that Sydney is likely to be dry, and the ball is likely to get scuffed up (relax, Darrell Hair, I meant naturally), giving Gul the chance to reverse-swing it. Has he been at his best in the last two months? No, but being dropped for the first test might just have been the thing to focus his mind. So I’d go with the Aamer-Asif-Gul-Kaneria attack, and hope for the best. Whatever happens, we must ensure that Rauf joins luminaries such as Kabir Khan, Zahoor Elahi, Naveed Latif, Mohammad Khalil and Khurram Manzoor as nominees for the prestigious “wait, who is that, how did they ever get into the side, and where are they now?” award.

All this leaves aside the bigger question: what do we do about our batting? We’ve had an absolutely horrible year with the bat – in our last 14 test innings, we’ve crossed 350 twice, and posted an average score of 276. You might have thought that a guy who averages 50 in test cricket, a guy who eight months ago was the top-ranked batsman in the world, could be a useful addition to such a team, but you would be wrong. You see, despite our captain and the team management requesting the selection committee and the board to get Younis Khan on the next plane to Australia – they’re so desperate, they requested twice (once after the first day’s play at Melbourne, once at the end of the test) – our brilliant management at home feels our batting is just fine.

The selection committee, supposed to take a decision on Monday, finally met on Wednesday and decided, “it is not like the team is losing just because he isn’t there,” (impeccable logic) and wondered, “Who will he replace there? Various batsmen have scored some runs here [Melbourne] so it might be unfair to drop them.” Welcome to the world of our selection committee, where the likes of Faisal Iqbal making a 40 and Misbah-ul-Haq making 60 after innumerable failures and dropped catches, means that it’s fine and dandy to keep the country’s best number three out of the side.

I honestly feel HBO could make a mini-series based on the fiascos plaguing Younis Khan this year; Lord knows Laraib would make a fortune off it. Since January 2009, Younis Khan has (1) accepted the captaincy after two years of reluctance, (2) compared Twenty20 cricket to professional wrestling, (3) played the dumbest reverse sweep in the history of cricket, (4) been accused of throwing a game once – by a member of parliament, no less – and resigned from the captaincy twice, (5) disappeared from public sight, only to be reported to have gone fishing and injured himself (inaccurately, as it turned out) and taking a coaching course (accurately), and (6) announced his availability for our toughest tour since, uh, our last tour to Australia, only to have the committee decide not to bother with our captain’s desperate pleas to have him sent. The bottom line is that, according to the latest reports, he will not be in the side for Sydney because he’s required to play domestic cricket first to “get some practice.” Right, then.

It’s criminal, but then we really should not expect more from the board and the selection committee. This is what they do. And if we don’t cross 300 again in Sydney, we’ll know who to blame. Hopefully we’ll lose by fewer than 170 runs this time.

Ahsan Butt is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Chicago, and he blogs at Five Rupees.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.