Pakistan's disappointing Australian tour ends on bitter note
Pakistan Times Sports Desk

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Sunday wrapped up the largely disappointing Australian tour on a bitter note, losing the second of the best-of-three finals by 31 runs at Sydney with the truly world champions home side clinching the VB tri-series.

Sports Analyst Farooq Ahmad writes that the Pakistanis' defeat in the Test series against the Australians earlier on the tour and now the 0-2 loss in the tri-series finals left the multitudes of fans at home little to celebrate, giving the country's cricket administrators much food for thought.

The results in Australia, plus matters like question over fitness of fast bowler Shoaib Akhter, will not be much of a morale-booster for the Pakistani cricket team ahead of the tour to India getting underway on February 26.

The Pakistani chief selector, former Test wicket-keeper Wasim Bari, is already reported to have branded the three-Test, five-ODIs Indian tour as tough as the one taken down-under.

The Pakistanis' qualification for the finals of tri-series in Australia raised hopes of the fans back home that perhaps their side will salvage something from the tour.

The West Indies skipper Brian Lara had also put his bet on Pakistan finally slaying the Australian Goliath after his own side had been beaten twice out of the three matches against the Pakistanis, thus failing to qualify for the finals.

These expectations turned sour as Aussies beat Pakistan by 18 runs in the first final at Melbourne, the controversial decisions by umpire Davis notwithstanding, and now by 31 runs in the second one at Sydney Cricket Ground where the even-bounce wicket was more to the liking of the Pakistanis than at the former venue where the ball had higher bounce.

Not many had fancied Pakistan upsetting the apple-cart for Australians when the team began the tour. The Aussies had conquered the "last frontier", by winning the away Test series in India for the first time a few weeks earlier.

In the first two matches of the three-Test series, Shoaib Akhter provided Pakistan the early advantage but on both the occasions, they were seen falling short of a real team effort to sustain these  initiatives.

Ultimately, Australia made a clean-sweep of the Test series, thus sealing their claim as the unofficial world Test champions also. They are the reigning world One-Day champions after defending their title in South Africa in 2003 after winning it in England in 1999. They have rarely lost a One-Day series since lifting the World Cup at Wanderer Stadium in Johannesburg (South Africa) on March 21, 2003.

The notion that Pakistan may just embarrass the world champions before home crowds in the tri-series final proved a wishful thinking.

The Chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board, Shaharyar M. Khan, had remarked after Pakistan had suffered a thrashing at Perth at the outset of the tour that Aussies usually made a visiting team play at that venue so that the tourists might struggle at the fast wicket and their confidence is dented ahead the coming matches.

But the Pakistani side went down without semblance of a fight in the tri-series finals and that too after getting so much used to Australian conditions with a couple of controversies also making headlines in Australian media.

Pakistan have never won a Test series in Australia and their only One-Day success downunder came under Wasim Akram's leadership in 1996-97.

With PCB Chairman now having a "hard talk" with Shoaib Akhter a few days back and telling the world's fastest bowler that he would not be selected for India unless he is fully fit, Pakistani team will have to bring out the best in them to beat India in India and put to rest the bitter memories of the Indians tour of Pakistan last year when they won both the Test and One-Day rubbers.●