Peaking at the right time

Good news for Pakistan cricket ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup commencing on Feb 7, 2025 in Sri Lanka. Team Pakistan has won the tri-nation T20 series beating Sri Lanka comfortably by six wickets in the final played in Rawalpindi this past Saturday. The Salman Agha men won four of the total five matches (including the final) of the event also featuring Zimbabwe. Prior to the tri-series, Green Shirts had defeated South Africa 2-1 in a three-match home T20 series.

To add to that, they had whitewashed Sri Lanka in a three-match ODI series at home earlier in November, besides leveling a two-Test home series against South Africa in October.

This consistently good performance in all formats of the game is an encouraging sign of rejuvenation of a team that had lost the T20 Asia Cup final to arch-rivals India in Dubai in September. While in Asia Cup, Team Pakistan had struggled to forge a fitting combination, it's heartening to see the team gelling well into a fighting unit in the recently concluded tri-series.

Opener Saim Ayub, who had performed miserably with the willow in Asia Cup, is catching up slowly and gradually. Sahibzada Farhan, the other opener, is at his crushing best, as ever. The return of Babar Azam to the shortest format of the game gives the much-needed strength to the team in the upper middle order. However, the strike rate of our batsmen, in general, is still an aspect to worry about. In the bowling department, there is a lot to choose from, specially among pacers. While Shaheen Shah Afridi is an automatic choice, others including Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah offer matching options for a perfect pair. And in Faheem Ashraf and Muhammad Nawaz, the team has finally found two dependable all-rounders.

With about two months to go for the world T20 contest, Team Pakistan is peaking at the right time. But there is still the need for Pakistan think-tank to do some fine-tuning and come up with a force to reckon with.