Sri Lankan squad due today

Karachi, Feb 5: Sri Lankan cricketers arrive here on Sunday on a six-week tour of Pakistan hoping to repeat the performance they put up five years ago.

Sri Lanka's last tour of Pakistan marked their beginning to the zenith to glory. In the 1995-96 series they came back from one Test down to clinch the next two to become only the third country after South Africa and Pakistan to achieve the distinction of winning a three-Test series after losing the opener.

The cricketers from the pearl island repeated the trend in the one-day series to win the rubber 2-1.

Immediately after the Pakistan tour, Sri Lanka travelled to Sharjah where they won their first one-day title defeating Pakistan and the West Indies in three-nation series.

Sri Lanka reached their pinnacle when in 1996 they won the World Cup at Lahore defeating Australia. The tournament was jointly hosted by Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka.

But Sri Lanka's failure to defend the World Cup in 1999 resulted in drastic changes. Skipper Arjuna Ranatunga and vice-captain Aravinda de Silva had to pay the price when they were replaced by Sanath Jayasuriya and Mahela Jayawardene.

The Sri Lankan board also fell back to their inspirational coach Dav Whatmore who immediately proved his worth by masterminding his team's victory over Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe two months back.

While the victory over Zimbabwe may be a real morale-booster, Sri Lanka's real test of skill, potential and mental strength will start from Feb 13 when they face Pakistan in first of the three one-day internationals at the National Stadium. The Karachi match will be followed up by games at Gujranwala and Lahore on Feb 16 and 19 respectively.

The Test series begins at Rawalpindi from Feb 26.

Pakistan team's morale looks to have been shattered by their lacklustre performance in Australia where they lost all the three Tests and six out of 10 one-day internationals. The batsmen are struggling to find their feet while once the demon fast bowlers Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis seem to be now down the hill. There is question also a mark over the availability of Shoaib Akhtar for the Tests after his bowling action was suspected in Australia by match referee John Reid.

The cricket administrators have already indicated changes in the Pakistan team for the rebuilding of the team for the 2003 World Cup in South Africa and it will start with the home series against Sri Lanka.

This leaves Ijaz Ahmad, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Shahid Afridi under tremendous pressure to retain their places.

But despite all the problems Pakistan, on their home ground will be a different proposition capable of winning on flat tracks. The batsmen capitalize from flat tracks and the reverse swing becomes effective for the fast bowlers.

It is to be seen in the next six weeks how successful the Pakistan cricketers are in putting Australian nightmare behind by maintaining their dominance over Sri Lanka. Pakistan have won 10 Tests out of 21 against Sri Lanka.