To be sure, even the win against Australia was not especially convincing. Despite a first innings deficit of 170, a Himalayan mountain in cricketing terms, Australia still managed to claw themselves back within three wickets of Pakistan. That they still fell short can be attributed to a sterling Pakistan bowling attack, a relatively inexperienced Australian team struggling to find its rhythm, and finally a highly composed 110-run 2nd wicket partnership between Imran Farhat and Azhar Ali which was the foundation of Pakistan's victorious chase.

By the time you read this, the 2nd Test between England and Pakistan will be two days old. After the embarrassment of Trent Bridge, there are bound to have been some changes made to the playing XI. Edgbaston, the venue for this match, has traditionally been a batsman-friendly surface, which means that our shaky batting line-up will have nowhere to hide. On seaming wickets you can at least rationalise a batting collapse by blaming sideways movement, against which Pakistani teams have always been vulnerable. But on a batting pitch there will be no credible excuse and failure will resonate far more loudly.

As an aside, it is worth clarifying the nomenclature regarding cricket venues in England. Everywhere else in the world, the venue of a cricket match is described by referring to the host city. The English tradition is to refer to the name of the stadium, and you are just 'expected' to know in which city that particular stadium happens to be located. Most fans are aware of the details, but in case you're not, here is the answer key Trent Bridge is in Nottingham, Old Trafford is in Manchester, Edgbaston is in Birmingham, Headingley is in Leeds, and the Oval and Lord's are both in London. In recent years, England have also hosted Test matches at a ground called Riverside, which is located in the northeastern city of Durham.

Pakistan have never won a Test at Edgbaston. Starting in 1962, they have played 6 Tests at this venue, losing 3 and drawing 3. Despite the absence of a win, Edgbaston nevertheless holds some fond memories for Pakistan, of which the fondest by far dates from 1971, when Zaheer Abbas stroked an unforgettable 274, playing in what was only his 2nd Test match. Pakistan's last Test at Edgbaston prior to this one, in June 1992, also saw a fine batting display, with Javed Miandad and Salim Malik both making big hundreds and sharing a 4th wicket partnership of 322.

The way Pakistan's batting keeps crumbling these days, it is hard to believe that players like Zaheer, Miandad and Malik were also produced by the same country. Most baffling is the sad reality that two batsmen, whom history will doubtless place alongside the Miandads and Zaheers of Pakistan, are currently eligible to play but have been steadfastly ignored by our cricket administrators.

We have all grudgingly come to accept that the PCB does more harm than good to Pakistan cricket, but this behaviour is approaching new heights of self-destruction. Both Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf have been cast in a sinister light, without any coherent explanation of what they did wrong. The conclusion is straightforward these players stood up to the arbitrariness of PCB chairman Ijaz Butt, and they are paying for it with their place in the side. As I file this column, four days before the Edgbaston Test, Mohammad Yousuf has finally been recalled; hopefully Younis Khan will also get the nod imminently.

Many fans are concerned that turning to Younis and Yousuf will somehow be taking a step backwards, but this is ridiculous reasoning. We all agree that merit must be the paramount factor in selection, so why are we ignoring merit where these two are concerned? Their Test records are the most meritorious of all our current batsmen, and their many match-winning and match-saving performances in the service of Pakistan speak for themselves.

Should there be any concern that these players foment political groupings within the team, it is the PCB's responsibility to manage them in a way that this is not allowed to happen. If good sense prevails - and admittedly that is a huge “if” where the PCB is concerned - both Younis and Yousuf will once again be notching up heroic performances for Pakistan before long.

As it is, merit appears to have been a major casualty in the current selection process. How else do you explain choosing players like Azhar Ali and Umar Amin ahead of a batting talent like Asad Shafiq? Asad, who hails from Karachi, topped batting statistics in this year's Quaid-e-Azam trophy and took his team Karachi Blues to the tournament title. The domestic performances of Azhar Ali and Umar Amin have fallen far short in comparison.

Or, for that matter, how do you explain dropping a batsman like Khurram Manzoor, who is also from Karachi? In his last Test innings, at Hobart in January this year, Khurram made a dogged 77 while the rest of the team crumbled around him. His reward was to be dropped from the Test side. Meanwhile, a player like Umar Amin keeps getting indulged despite failure after failure.

Cold cricketing logic dictates that you can't win Test matches unless you have Test batsmen, and at Trent Bridge Pakistan had none. A skillful bowling attack alone can only take you so far. And when you add Kamran Akmal's shoddy wicket-keeping to the mix, the odds for Pakistan giving any sort of fight to England for the rest of the summer appear nearly insurmountable. Younis and Yousuf do offer real hope, but recalling one and not the other is a piecemeal solution, which as we all know is no real solution at all.