If Pakistan could do nothing about the two elements of nature - the pitch and the stifling heat - there was little they could do about the third element - Virender Sehwag

If Pakistan could do nothing about the two elements of nature - the pitch and the stifling heat - there was little they could do about the third element - Virender Sehwag

If the recently concluded one-day series is to be taken as a marker, then the real excitement may be about to begin tomorrow

How Pakistan fare in the remainder of the series may well depend on how often Abdul Razzaq meets expectations

It wasn't for nothing that Steve Waugh and his Australians used to believe that the battle is often won early on in a match, whether it is the first session of a Test or the first 15 overs of a one-dayer

And, finally, there is only the cricket

Osman Samiuddin introduces Pakistan's new medium-pacer, Rao Iftikhar Anjum

Over the last year, it had become the norm for pundits and journalists alike to routinely express shock, dismay, horror and disgust at Pakistan selections

With the logistical preliminaries finally out of the way, the sense of relief in Pakistan is palpable

The PCB, by ensuring that both Karachi and Peshawar will host the Indians for a day, has opted for the only path it could have chosen in what had become a no-win situation

In politics, if you can please some people some of the time, then you have done well

Following South Africa's curtailed tour last October and the Kiwi whistlestop tour in December, Karachi and Peshawar are again in line to bear the brunt of vague security concerns

Wasim Bari, the chief selector, has been busy looking at various players not originally announced in the probables list

You would be forgiven for thinking that the biggest series in international cricket in recent memory had already been postponed

The publication of confidential correspondence between the Anti Corruption Unit and the PCB, detailing the former's concerns over match-fixing in the Pakistani camp during two ODI tournaments in 2002, raised some uncomfortable issues, and leaves more

Akram is not the property of the Pakistani people or of the PCB

The end wasn't as spectacularly chaotic as the reign had been

About the only thing that brings about more discussion and hand-wringing thaninternational cricket in Pakistan is the state of the domestic cricket, writes Osman Samiuddin

More than any individual part, it is now the sum of the whole that is looking increasingly impressive for Pakistan

You could fault Moin Khan for many technical reasons - but you can't argue with his persistence and his heart