Watching the recent Test series in Sri Lanka, I could scarcely believe my eyes.

A team known for its painful, plodding, and laborious run-scoring … going at 4, 5, 6, and sometimes 7 an over? A side with a history of comical and destructive drops… taking not just every single regulation catch, but a half dozen blinders too? A captain with a reputation for being reactive, slow and, frankly, quite dim in Test cricket… using innovative tactics, field placements, and bowling changes?

Yes, yes and yes. Long suffering fans could be forgiven for asking who kidnapped our squad and replaced them with AI-powered clones.

It is impossible to overstate how good we looked in Sri Lanka. It was comfortably our most successful Test tour this millennium. The 1996 England tour and the 2000 one to Sri Lanka — the last two times Pakistan won an away Test series at least 2-0 against a team not named Bangladesh or Zimbabwe — are probably the closest analogues to what we just witnessed.

In 2000, we went to the very same Sri Lanka and, playing a team boasting Atapattu, Jayasuriya, Aravinda, Ranatunga, Vaas and Murali, handily won the first two matches, before the third was rained out. Perhaps more impressively, in 1996, we won the first and third Tests in England, giving them the biggest hiding they received at home that entire decade, aside from the 1993 Ashes (4-1 to Australia).

Sri Lanka was comfortably Pakistan’s most successful Test tour this millennium. And our coaching and management played a huge role in this triumph. So why are we threatening to fire them?

One major difference between those results and this one is that the 1990s squad — the halcyon days of Wasim/ Waqar/ Saeed/ Inzi — relied almost entirely on a massive gulf in talent between them and the opposition, while the 2023 version was not, primarily, a talent-driven win.

Indeed, Babar’s men are largely the same individuals who were blanked at home by Australia, England and New Zealand last year, when we won a grand total of zero Tests out of eight against teams that hadn’t visited us since the turn of the century.

So, what changed? As with the Bazball-inspired changes in England’s fortunes — one win in 17 Tests before the appointments of Ben Stokes and Brendan McCullum, 12 in 17 after — our coaching and management played a huge role in this triumph.

Specifically, the professional, data-oriented and player-positive approach of Team Mickey was a huge factor behind our success, as well as the panache and style with which it was achieved.

Grant Bradburn has experience with our set-up — is this what happens when you promote a fielding coach to head coach? — and is known to value the importance of data when it comes to selection and tactics.

Rehan-ul-Haq, both in his roles in Islamabad United as well as a television analyst, has been a breath of fresh air, who puts players first, and works hard to gain their trust and increase their confidence. As for Mickey Arthur, he is the one under whom many of our contemporary stars got their initial break. Together, they constitute the most modern and progressive backroom staff we have had since the late, great Bob Woolmer.

The unerring and holistic message from Team Mickey has been about playing positive, unafraid cricket, taking the game to the opposition, and trusting (and expanding) one’s skill set. They advertise it as “the Pakistan Way.” Others, such as Cricinfo, have called it “Pakball”. The ‘Outside Edge’ column prefers “phaintaball”, a term born on Reddit and a nod to the style’s spiritual guru, Shoaib Akhtar.

Regardless of the labels for this new mindset and approach, Mickey, Bradburn and Rehan deserve enormous credit for their roles in what happened in Sri Lanka. After the repeated failures of the likes of Waqar Younis, or the “qudrat-ka-nizam” placidity of Saqlain Mushtaq, we are incredibly lucky to have the coaching and management staff that we do.

But rather than showering them with credit or giving them performance bonuses, the (new) powers that be, led by Zaka Ashraf and Misbah-ul-Haq, have subjected Team Mickey to uncertainty and are, at the time of writing this column, reportedly considering firing them. Because this is Pakistan, and we can’t have nice things.

The reasons are entirely personal. Najam Sethi appointed Mickey, Bradburn and Rehan. So, of course, Zaka sahib, in a bid to make his presence felt, as well as demonstrate the unbridled idiocy of his predecessor, wants his own people. After all, if Najam Sethi did it, it must be bad.

Meanwhile, Misbah, recently appointed Ashraf’s cricketing consigliere, has a staunchly anti-Mickey track record; he headed the committee that fired Mickey (and replaced him with himself) in his last go-around in Pakistan, and stridently criticised Mickey’s appointment this time too.

Only in Pakistan could a management and coaching staff utterly revolutionise our style of play, excise the tuk-tuk defensiveness that has marked our cricket for two decades, return a genuinely astonishing result, insert a level of effervescence and positivity in the dressing room, all to have their jobs threatened.

Make no mistake, were they to be let go — and by the time you read this, the deed may already have been done — it would be an inexcusable and insane act of self-destruction, spurred by petty jealousy and stubbornness.

And even if they aren’t fired but merely unsettled, what would this episode have accomplished? What was the point of leaking reports to the press about the shaky ground Team Mickey stands on? What does that do to their preparations and confidence, and that of the larger dressing room?

Again, as a reminder, we did spectacularly in Sri Lanka. How and why is anyone even discussing the management’s positions after such a dominating performance, that too four weeks before the Asia Cup and two months before the World Cup? This is like a corporate board firing a CEO after a year of record-breaking profits. It makes no sense whatsoever.

In the happy event that Team Mickey keeps its collective job, its real challenge will come on the Australian tour in four months. Sri Lanka was nice and all, but there is no taller mountain in Test cricket for Pakistan than a series in Australia.

Remember, Pakistan have gone 0-0-14 in their last 14 Tests in Australia, dating back 30 years. In almost all of those 14 losses, we weren’t even a threat to draw, let alone win, the game, with the minor exceptions of Gabba 2016 and the PTSD-inducing Hobart 1999 and Sydney 2010.

Our white ball set-up is in pretty good shape: finals in the last Asian and World Cups, a tri-series win in New Zealand, Babar improving as captain, and the Pakistan Super League (PSL) regularly throwing up selection headaches, combine to mean that, if we fail to reach the final of the Asia Cup and at least the semis of the ODI World Cup, it will be a huge disappointment.

But it is in red ball cricket where the Bradburn/Rehan effect will be most keenly felt. Anything other than a 3-0 whitewash would be a huge win, given our lowly standards Down Under. Could we pull it off?

Maybe. We will need what worked in Sri Lanka — and much more. The pre-tour camps worked wonders, and would be critical before Australia. A longer run-in before the first Test (in, gulp, Perth), featuring practice matches against club or state sides may not be a terrible idea. Shaheen and Naseem would have to be 100 percent fit.

Unlike our last four tours to Australia, we actually have the horses to do some damage this time. Let’s hope the management and coaching staff get a chance to finish what they’ve started.

The writer is an associate professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University in the US. He tweets @ahsanib

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 6th, 2023