Every time I promise myself not to expect anything from you and try to keep myself from following you, you spring a surprise and my heart flutters with hope. Only to come crashing down again...and every fall is worse than the last.

One brilliant innings from Fawad Alam, a couple of jaw-dropping, sparkling innings from Umar Akmal or a raw-energy filled spell of immaculate fast bowling from Mohammad Aamer is all it takes for expectations to rise again. I know history forbids me from taking these randomly generated glimpses of brilliance as anything but a false alarm, but I can’t really help it when I see Asif and Sami rip the Aussie batting apart, can I?

Waking up at 4.am. to watch a cricket match suddenly seems way easier than waking up for sehri. Framing superlative-loaded bulletin headlines, updating my Facebook status in anticipation of historic wins is all that I do. And what do I get in return? A gazillion dropped catches? A field-plan that looks more like children playing ring-around-the-roses than eleven men on a mission to clean-up the Australian tail? Or a bunch of batsmen already day-dreaming of plucking the stumps out of the pitch as they gift their wicket away?

It hurts more each time, it hurts so much that I shut my ears and eyes to everything newsy. So much that I delete Cricinfo from my browser’s ‘favourites’ list. So much that I vow never to watch a bright red cherry leaving Aamer’s hand again but then you go and spoil it all…

Hafsa Adil is a sports editor at Dawn.com

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.