What lessons from the Zimbabwe series?

Five-nil should not look bad on paper but this one does. The piece of paper in question is the team sheet, which has been rearranged so often during the Zimbabwe series that it is almost impossible to draw any meaningful conclusions. Pakistan's selectors will say that they have responded to the calls for new faces but they have betrayed their own uncertainty with such haphazard substitutions. Many of the young players were given solitary opportunities against Zimbabwe, an insufficient experiment to judge Pakistan's bench strength.

Assuming Australia do visit, Pakistan's only consolation can be that Ricky Ponting's team is enduring a few problems of its own although these are insignificant when compared with Pakistan's selection confusion.

I would, though, hazard two conclusions. First, that Sarfraz Ahmed deserves a longer run in the first team, and second that from the array of bowlers that Pakistan experimented with the selectors should invest in those with pace, for example Sohail Khan.

Rarely has a five-nil result been so empty and so devoid of meaning. Another lesson I'm sure that will go unlearned in the grand tradition of Pakistan's cricket development strategy.