- Pakistan is safe for cricket
There was a fitness in Sri Lanka being the first Test team to tour Pakistan after a decade. After all, it had been the last, on whom a terrorist attack had led to other teams refusing to tour, and Pakistan having to shift its home fixtures to Dubai. Technically, international cricket had resumed in Pakistan, with Zimbabwe visiting for T20s and ODIs in 2016 and Sri Lanka itself visiting earlier in the season for ODIs, but the two-Test series ending in Karachi on Monday represented a return to Pakistan of Tests. That Pakistan won 1-0, after drawing at Rawalpindi, was only appropriate, following as it did win against Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka in the shorter formats.
The Pakistan team did not let the violent past or the peaceful present weigh on them, and after the nightmarish series in Australia, in which both Tests were lost by an innings, there were some positives to take away from the Tests at home. Where Pakistan out on its usual pathetic batting display in the first innings, which saw the team dismissed for 191, the second innings saw only the second time in Test history that four batsmen scored centuries, allowing Pakistan to declare on 555, and give Sri Lanka a target of 475 by lunch on the fourth day. It might be too early to predict a revival of Pakistani batting generally, but the fact remains that the batting came good when it was most needed. Abid Ali seems a good find at the top of the order, now having two centuries in just three Test innings. Shan Masood partnered him well at Karachi, but at 32, Abid is a little long in tooth. Shan is 30, also not necessarily a long-term prospect. On the other hand, the bowling heroes, Shaheen Afridi with a five-wicket haul that kept Sri Lanka to 271 in the first innings, and Naseem, Shah with another, that bowled out Sri Lanka in the second, are both in their teens, and could give the team good service for years to come.
Pakistan should bring its cricket home, including the PSL tournament entirely. The panicky security of PSL matches in past must be avoided, for while Pakistanis want their cricket, they want to enjoy it, not have heavy-handed security crowd out the fun.
