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The third test between Pakistan and SriLanka ended in a draw when Kumar Sangakara, Thilan Samaraweera , and Angelo Mathews held their ground against Pakistani bowlers on the final day.  Pakistan failed to win the dead rubber as a consolation prize, it was the third time in the series that Pakistan failed to finish off their opponent.

Pakistan was playing a test series after a long time and the team at times appeared to be struggling to adjust to the format, I’m sure the selectors and team management must have learned a few lessons and hopefully they will not repeat some of the mistakes made in this series against Australia.

1- Pakistan should not mess with the opening combination so frequently, the selectors committed a fatal mistake by selecting an out of form Salman Butt and technically flawed Khurram Manzoor. I think Nasir Jamshed and Ahmed Shahzad should be given a longer run, while Azhar Ali, Kamran Younis, Khurram Manzoor and Khalid Latif should be nurtured as reserves. Pakistan have been consistently messing up with the opening combination since the last two years every series played during the last two years saw a new opening combination no one is being allowed to settle.

2- Except Mohammad Yousaf no other batsman could muster more than one good innings in this series, Malik was quite close but even his performance in the first two matches was not satisfactory.

If you take out one good performance away from each batsman the following will be their average.

Malik scored 128 runs in five innings @ 32.

Yousaf scored 141 from 5 innings @ 28.2.

Younis Khan scored just 49 runs from 5 innings @ 9.8.

Fawad Alam scored 48 from 3 innings @16.

Khurram scored 60 from 5 innings @ 12.

Misbah scored 93 from 5 innings @ 18.6.

The above analysis clearly shows that except Malik and Yousaf every other batsman in the team scored @ average of less than 20 if their best innings was taken out, all the batsmen with exception of Yousaf could muster only one big innings, Younis, Misbah and Akmal were the biggest culprits. Lack of consistency is the biggest problem, the selctors should make note that most of the players only performed for themselves, Yousaf scored a century when he wanted to make his comeback special, Malik scored a century when his arse was on line, Fawad scored a century on his debut after which he failed. Younis scored an 82 to make his criticis shut up. Misbah and Malik also scored in the last innings of the series just to retain their position, the selectors should think before selecting these players again, why these players are able to score when it is important for them and why they fail when the team requires them to show some determination.

3- Bowlers did their job through out the series but even they were not consistent individually, Umar Gul bowled good in only one innings, most of the pundits believe that he is not a test bowler but I think he has a double personality as a bowler one which struggles with his rythym and can’t get his line and length right and fails with the new ball and the other who swings the ball both ways and bowls toe crushing yorkers and looks to be the most dangerous bowler in the world. More consistency should be demanded from him or else Mohammad Asif should be welcomed back in his place in the test team. Aamer was quite unlucky as Khurram Manzoor was determined not to take any catch in the slips on Aamer’s bowling but I still believe that Aamer has a lot to learn and in my opinion he should not be given a default selection until he adds more weapons to his bowling.

Kineria made a statement in the first innings as he was also making a comeback and in the second he turned into his usual mediocre self, the only bowler who was consistent through out the series was Saeed Ajmal.

The team badly needs a bowling coach other than Aaqib Javed.

The team also needs a proper batting coach who can train them to handle the movement of a new ball, more new ball bowlers should be introduced in the domestic circuit and more supporting pitches should be made during the RBS tournaments so that the players can get trained.