So far so good and Pakistan, a team of surprises, has dutifully won both its matches against Zimbabwe. The first by a huge margin, after recovering from the shock of early wickets and the second by a smaller margin. Once again after losing early wickets.
A sterner test will come when Sri Lanka enters the fray. Sri Lanka too is a team that blows hot and cold but is a far more experienced than Zimbabwe and it has got some quality players and in Marvan Atapattu a captain who has learnt the art of communicating with his players.
Pakistan continues to have an unsettled look that reserves its best when it plays against India but it gives the impression that it lacks cohesion and there is still too much reliance on individual; brilliance rather than on team-work.
Bob Woolmer has been with the team for three tournaments and the present triangular will be his fourth. He has had a pretty good look at all the first-string talent available. This is the lot that he will have to work with and a lot of hard work lies in store for him.
I agree with him to a point that the batting order in the one-day game but be flexible but when the acting captain Yousuf Youhana, the best batsman in the team comes in to bat at number seven and the fate of the match sill undecided, then we are in the zone of elasticity rather than flexibility.
There are two operating principles in the one-day game. The first is not to lose early wickets and to try and see off the early overs when the new, white ball needs to be negotiated and some sort of platform is provided,
The other is that there should be wickets in hand in the last 10 or 15 overs so that the run-rate can be increased but there should be a set batsman in these final overs.
Pakistan used to have Majid Khan and Sadiq Mohammad followed by Mohsin Khan and Mudassar Nazar and followed by Saeed Anwar and Aamir Sohail to open the innings. Now we truthfully can say that we do not have a pair of established openers and are still experimenting.
The pair of Yasir Hameed and Imran Farhat had looked promising but has been separated. In the last three matches that Pakistan had played, the openers have been Yasir and Salman Butt, Yasir and Bazid Khan and then again Yasir and Salman Butt.
Yasir has shown himself vulnerable to the moving ball and needs to look at the videos of how he got out in his last two innings. I have no idea whose brainchild it was to get Younis Khan to keep wickets.
Moin Khan had fallen ill and a regular wicket-keeper in Kamran Akmal was available to the team and if I am not wrong was present at Peshawar. Against a team like Zimbabwe, I suppose anything goes and one get by with a back-stopper but the principle is wrong.
Perhaps, a way had to be found to get Younis in the team. Strange that this same player did not play a single game in the ICC Champions Trophy and is not only in the playing squad but also in the playing eleven. I think we need better planning from the team management.
We needed to blood new players against Zimbabwe not re-cycle them. He had a good match and scored 77 and while we may praise the quality of the runs, some weight must be given to the quality of bowling and Zimbabwe's bowling must be the weakest in international cricket.
It is both good and bad news that Pakistan's tour of India has been confirmed. Good news for obvious reasons because cricket ties between the two countries have returned to normalcy.
The bad news is that the tour follows Pakistan's tour of Australia. And two back-to-back tours against opponents of the quality of Australia and India should be giving our selectors sleepless nights.
There just isn't the batting and there are a lot of question marks about the bowling. I don't think the spin of Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi is good enough. The key lies in the restoration to full fitness of Shabbir Ahmed and an improvement in Rao Iftikhar who is losing out in line and length because someone has told him that he is a fast bowler.
Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami will need back-up support and Sami had better quickly re-discover the art of taking wickets. He has been off the boil for a long time. He's got to realize that bowling fast is not enough. He's got to be able to do more than not. He has to become a thinking fast bowler
But of immediate interest is the triangular with Sri Lanka as the third team and then the two test matches against Sri Lanka. Pakistan hasn't played a test match for a long time and changes will be required in the team as well as in our approach to Test cricket.
Sri Lanka is a very good one-day team but it is no mug at Test cricket. We will get some idea of what is in store for us when we set off for Australia and India. Tours like that can make careers and can unmake some. There's a lot to play for, not only for the team but also for the players. Woolmer had better put his thinking cap on.