Pakistan now travels to Ireland for two One-Day Internationals next week before returning to England for five ODIs and a Twenty20 International.
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Sri Lanka’s win by 2-0 or 3-0, coupled with a 2-0 or 2-1 win for India against the West Indies will give Pakistan the number-one ranking for the first time since the official rankings were introduced in 2003. Pakistan will play a total of seven one day internationals against Ireland and England and a solitary Twenty20 worldwide against the latter.
Pakistan Test skipper Misbah ul Haq Sunday paid glowing tributes to Younis Khan, calling him a “champion batsman and all-time great”. There are a lot of tours and even our home series are in the UAE. I only see my sister once in a year.
“Six years of not playing any games at home”. But just living every day away from your family and friends, and playing every game away from Pakistan is really hard. I don’t see my friends for three, four years.
“(Now) we have to go back to play against the West Indies, from there we go to New Zealand and then straightaway we are going to Australia (all for Test tours in the coming months). It’s not easy. But still the team is winning. There were a lot of “ifs and buts” before we came here to England, saying that we can only play in Asian conditions.
“I’m really proud of this team and if we became No.1 after these results, I think this team would really deserve that”. The highest Pakistan have ever reached is second position following its series win over England in the United Arab Emirates past year.
England could, had they won at The Oval and seen other results around the world fall in their favour, have moved to the top of the Test rankings.
“It was something special to draw the series here after being 2-1 down, losing the second Test badly and losing the third”.
Either way, it sets up a tantalising summer for Australia. We knew they were a good side and 2-2 is probably a fair reflection.
A series win would also mean England will hold all nine bilateral trophies against the remaining test playing nations.
Opening batsman Cook and number three Joe Root continued to rack up the runs, but the rest of England s specialist batsmen struggled against Pakistan.
“Consistently, we haven’t scored enough runs at the top of the order”, Cook said. We are out of the country all the time.
“The lower-order have scored runs but they should be putting the icing on the cake, not making the cake”.
That enabled Yasir Shah to leave the hosts in a spin with 5-71 in the second innings, before openers Sami Aslam and Azhar Ali knocked off the 40 runs Pakistan needed for a 10-wicket win.
“The team deserves that”.
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“Moeen has done a fantastic job for us since he came into the side as a batter who bowled a bit”. He’s not a Yasir Shah as a spinner and he probably never will be. “It’s an area of the game we have to look at”. “Sometimes you’re mentally exhausted and that can really come into play and you say “enough is enough, I have to leave this game”, he said. “It’s not easy but the team is winning, playing competitive cricket and the team has shown we are good enough to play in these conditions”.
