The whitewash that few saw coming

Whitewashes can usually be seen coming a mile away, or at least that is the case with Pakistan, and even if you don't see them, it all makes sense very soon after they've gone. A template, set on the 1962 tour to England, has more or less stood firm over the years, despite cricket being unrecognisable now from what it must have been then. Technically that tour wasn't a whitewash, but Pakistan would have lost the fourth Test had over ten hours not been lost to rain, so essentially it was.

The outcome was obvious even before the first Test began in Birmingham. Pakistan had appointed a young, inexperienced man as captain. They had no bowling attack. The one gun they had - Haseeb Ahsan - was sent home under controversial circumstances (Official line: Injury. Innuendo: Chucking). Senior players were unhappy, fading stars were fishing for opportunities from the outside and the management was missing only the 'mis' as prefix.

With only minor variations, that series set in tone how Pakistan whitewashes would forever unspool. Sometimes the opposition was just better than them. Other times, Pakistan were enough for themselves, on the field in their poor disciplines and off the field in even poorer disciplines.

It wasn't entirely obvious that Pakistan would be clean-swept on their last tour to Australia. They had a good new-ball attack, an exciting batting talent, an opener who had runs in Australia and one of their greatest batsmen as captain.

After the tour it became obvious that only a fool - this correspondent included - could have missed the signs. Mohammad Yousuf should never have been captain. Nobody wanted him to be, least of all himself. The players didn't not get on, but they weren't really a team either. The core, of Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir, Kamran Akmal and Danish Kaneria, was rotten and only a few knew. The management missed all signs of the dysfunction; that, or they were incapable of handling it.

So in a way, as we sit here, another whitewash so fresh in our minds, it is testament to the enduring impossibility of putting Misbah-ul-Haq into any kind of conventional box a Pakistani would recognise, that he has suffered an unparalleled whitewash. Testament is not quite the right word is it? But then, how else to explain this one?

Of all the modern Pakistan teams that have toured Australia, this really looked the least likely to endure such a fate. This was the least Australian of the Australian sides who have bullied Pakistan - in fact beaten them - before they even got on the field. More relevantly, this was the best-equipped Pakistan side to not be whitewashed.

Their last away tour was a triumph. They had batsmen coming of age, a bowling attack that provided all kinds of angles to attack. They had been together on this ride for a while, and were stable; as stable as they have ever been. The captain was in charge. Nobody disputed his authority, and even the fiercest critics of his style had begun to come around. Even three defeats in a row hadn't properly taken the sheen off.

Most of all, until almost exactly the halfway mark of this series, the third afternoon in Melbourne - what days they were remember? - the idea of Pakistan losing 3-0 was preposterous. The reality of it even now, after it has happened, still sounds preposterous.

This truly is a whitewash that didn't conform to type. Only Bazid Khan, who offers his occasional insights on these pages and is, in a weird, unresolved way, a member of this Misbah era, thought Pakistan might struggle as they have done (don't be mistaken: plenty gave them no chance but none of them did so rationally). He saw a captain on the downside of a crest, a legspinner who would struggle with the truer bounce of Australian surfaces and, above all, a pace attack many thought to be better than it actually was - or at least less tired than it was.

It was the bowling that delivered this one, or at least left the lasting imprints on the magnitude of Pakistan's defeats: an innings - in three days' play and having declared - at the MCG and 220 runs at the SCG. These are hefty, hefty losses. Collectively, this was the worst bowling performance, in terms of the average runs per wicket conceded, by a Pakistan side ever in a three-Test series. It is the second-worst over any duration of three or more. The first, or rather, the worst? Javed Burki's side in that 1962 series, although he had an excuse - those years were as dry and barren as a desert as far as Pakistani bowling went and resources were very, very thin.

Right from the mode in which Yasir Shah began in Brisbane, to giving away the hand in Melbourne on that third afternoon, and through to the total meltdown during Australia's second innings in Sydney, this was, in the vogue parlance, an epic fail. The fourth day here, when Australia went at over seven an over through the innings, was possibly the worst bowling performance in Misbah's time.

Throughout an inherent distrust was apparent, in how Yasir was deployed, in how rarely the pacemen bowled together beyond the new ball, in any number of ways. It hardly matters now how the trust was lost in the first place, by deed of the bowlers, or by caution of the captain.

The plans, if the management is to be believed, were fine; the execution not so much. If the right lengths were found, it wasn't for long enough. Ditto the right lines, not that they were ever right for Yasir. If at one end, a bowler was in the middle of a good spell, at the other, inevitably, his partner was bowling dross. As has been a running theme, it took all of them time to work out how best to bowl where, but by the time they had, the game was gone.

All year outside of the UAE, this four-man attack has looked on the verge of cracking open and finally, painfully, in Australia, the band-aid holding them together was no longer enough. The toll on Amir and Yasir began to tell; Sohail Khan's fitness was exposed; the cost of stunting Imran Khan's development over the last 15 months in which he only played three Tests and four first-class matches became clear. But still - to take only 33 of a possible 60 wickets? For a group of bowlers that had won two Tests in England six months ago?

Some people - Misbah included - might argue the team that came here in 1999-00 was the one least expected to lose all three Tests. Much of that hype emanated from the fact that the two teams had contested - a loose interpretation of that word - the World Cup final months previously. That side, though, was on a downward curve, an aging and ailing one, the dying of an iridescent flame that had, by turn, lit up the 90s as well as burnt it. The board was in a mess, Qayyum was underway and Australia were becoming Great Australia.

No, that clean sweep could be foretold. This was the one. This really was the one. Until now, when it wasn't.