In order to do this, the first thing you need is an accurate measure of performance. Since we are speaking of a panoramic perspective, a team statistic is required, rather than an index of batting or bowling. It should also be clear and straightforward, not any abstruse composite calculation that can be hard to explain and even harder to understand.

Fortunately, such a measure is indeed available, in the form of the Win/Loss Ratio (WLR). This number accurately reflects a team's ability to win, and is computed by an uncomplicated calculation in which the number of wins by a team are divided by the number of its losses, over a defined period of time.

The better a team performs, the more it wins, and the higher will be its WLR. It's that simple.

I recently looked up the WLR for Pakistan in both Tests and ODIs, and compared it with other leading international teams. (Zimbabwe and Bangladesh were left out from this comparison because their WLRs at the moment are negligible.) This information can be easily obtained from the Internet; the figures shown are from Statsguru, the search engine for cricket statistics on Cricinfo. To convey the data in graphic form, I asked for help from my friend Muhammad Islam, a medical statistician at Aga Khan University.

Starting with the overall WLR figures (tables), the most noticeable feature is that Pakistan has done remarkably well during its six-decade life in international cricket. Particularly striking is Pakistan's overall WLR of 1.07 in Tests, making it the third most successful team in Test cricket, after Australia and England. Take a moment to absorb that fact. Over the years, Pakistan has been a more successful Test side than even the likes of West Indies and South Africa, and substantially more successful than India, whose WLR of 0.76 places it near the bottom of the list.

In ODIs, Pakistan has an overall WLR of 1.21, placing it fourth on the list. Australia and South Africa are well ahead at the top, and West Indies is third, marginally ahead of Pakistan with a WLR of 1.22. This, too, is a very creditable performance from Pakistan, which comes out well ahead of teams like India, England, New Zealand and Sri Lanka, in this ranking.

The time-trend graphs show how the various teams have fared over the decades. (For this comparison, I have used data from 1950s onwards, which is when Pakistan entered international cricket.) Australia appears to be the most consistent Test side, having maintained a decent WLR more or less throughout. Their worst decade was the 1980s, but even then their performance did not dip too much, and they emerged the fourth most successful Test team from those years.

There is a dramatic peak in the Test time trend, which confirms that the most successful outfit in any given decade was the West Indian team of the 1980s — by quite a distance. Indeed, that side led by Clive Lloyd and boasting batsmen like Gordon Greenidge and Viv Richards, and bowlers like Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding, among a host of other notables, can rightfully be considered the greatest team of all time. Unfortunately for the West Indies, this fantastic run could not be sustained. The downward slope of their peak reveals that their fall from grace has been no less precipitous.

As the graphs show, Pakistan's most successful Test era was also in the 1980s. At a WLR of 1.76 for this decade, Pakistan was the number two team in the world in those days. For this august legacy, we have no one else to thank but Imran Khan and Javed Miandad, the two legends of Pakistan cricket who made that golden period possible. The 1990s, with Inzamamul Haq and Saeed Anwar in batting and the awesome duo of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in pace bowling, were also a happy time for Pakistan; with a WLR of 1.52, it ended the decade ranked third, after South Africa (who had re-entered Test cricket with a bang) and Australia.

The unsurprising, yet concerning, revelation from these graphs is that Pakistan's prowess in international has been eroded during the past decade. The dip is marginal in ODIs, but alarming in Tests. Pakistan has spent the 2000s near the bottom of the Test table, ranked sixth out of eight, ahead of only New Zealand and West Indies.

These days we are struggling with perhaps the most adverse circumstances of Pakistan's cricket history. It is bad enough that terrorists are keeping visiting teams away and evil bookies are corrupting our young talent, but we are also doing ourselves no favours by preserving a cricket board that seems intent on murdering the system.

The continued exclusion of Younus Khan, Pakistan's best batsman and most deserving captain, is the latest injustice. Pakistan's win-loss record through history shows the great feats that our team is capable of. Taking the long view helps ease the pain somewhat, but for the moment we are left with little other than ruing our squandered potential.