Test cricket is universally acknowledged as the pinnacle of the game, a real test of a team's ability; however, Pakistan has been guilty of not according enough respect to Test cricket over the past two decades or so. A look at Pakistan's performances suggests that the victory graph has slowly but surely come down over the years as Pakistan has lost its last Test series against all major opposition.

Pakistan's Test cricket over the past quarter of a century can easily be classified into three distinct phases; the first one from late 1985 when Zaheer Abbas was deposed as captain of the team to early 1993 when Javed Miandad suffered the same fate. The second phase from mid 1993 when Wasim Akram took over the reins to the beginning of 2003 culminating in the ouster of Waqar Younis from the hot seat. The third and the last one can be classified from mid 2003 to date.

The 'golden era' saw Pakistan winning Test series against almost all the big teams i.e. the West Indies, England, Australia and India and losing only one.

Pakistan's success remained an impressive 54 per cent during the second phase but that number would have been on the wrong side of 50 had Pakistan not played against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe - teams that had not got Test status during the first phase in question. The team lost a Test series to England at home for the first time in 39 years; it could manage only two victories against Australia as opposed to nine losses in 15 Test matches. Pakistan lost a Test series against Sri Lanka for the first time ever and also became the first team to have lost a Test match and a Test series to Zimbabwe.

The last phase has seen Pakistan's success slip further down to 46 per cent and that includes three straight wins against Bangladesh. Pakistan has lost more matches than it has won against majority of the big teams like England, India, South Africa and Sri Lanka and has been unable to even draw a Test match against Australia - let alone winning it - till last month's Headingly Test. The team lost a home series against India for the first time in history and established a new world record of 13 successive losses against a single team i.e. Australia.

Leadership during the first phase was completely dominated by two individuals namely Javed Miandad and Imran Khan with the latter being the regular captain and Miandad taking over whenever required. Imran Khan's captaincy never came under threat despite him losing a number of important one-day international (ODI) contests such as the World Series Cup in Australia in 1988-89 and 1989-90 plus the 1987 World Cup. Pakistan's tied Test series against the West Indies in West Indies in 1987-88 was celebrated in the country even though the team was thrashed 5-0 during the ODIs. Similarly, Pakistan's 1-0 victory during the 1987 English summer was also cherished despite the team coming second best in the ODI series.

The next phase saw captaincy change hands among seven players including Wasim Akram, Saleem Malik, Rameez Raja, Rashid Latif, Aamer Sohail, Saeed Anwar and Moin Khan. The captaincy during the last phase has rotated between Rashid Latif, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Shoaib Malik, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Shahid Afridi and Salman Butt.

It is an accepted fact that a captain can only extract the best out of his team by leading from the front. Hence, it is easy to determine one of the main reasons for Pakistan's wonderful show during the first phase in question. Imran Khan and Javed Miandad were easily the team's best players and led the bowling and batting departments of the team with distinction.

Interesting statistics that signify the number of new caps awarded to youngsters by the selectors. Only 19 players were able to make their Test debuts during the Imran-Miandad tenure; this number rose to an astonishing 51 during the next phase. For a team to become a fighting unit over a sustained period of time, it is necessary that the players are provided enough chances to play together and develop a certain amount of rapport among themselves. This also helps them in getting tuned to the finer aspects of the game such as running between the wickets as they can only improve their communication by spending time together in the middle. It is quite clear from the above numbers that the team was not allowed to settle down during this middle phase and hence results deteriorated. The trend appears to have continued in the current phase as well as 28 Test caps have so far been distributed among youngsters. Out of these 28 players, as many as 15 have been dumped without being provided the chance to play even five Tests.

Either the players are being picked without having their credentials properly judged or the selectors are impatient with these youngsters. It seems that selectors prefer flamboyance, flair and youth over grit, determination and experience. It is evident that there are serious problems with the team's existing batting lineup; reasons for which are not difficult to determine. Proven performers at first-class level such as Aamer Sajjad and Asad Shafiq have failed to find spots in the squad; players who have shown that they are prepared to work hard at the Test level despite limitations in technique such as Fawad Alam and Khurram Manzoor have been axed. No serious effort was made to bring back world-class batsman Mohammad Yousuf, till it became clear that the English bowling attack will expose the limitations of the existing lot; but the seasoned Younis Khan continues to be ignored.

Bowling outside the current pace trio of Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Aamer and Umar Gul looks thin; still, experienced bowlers with hundreds of wickets at the first-class level such as Abdur Rauf and Yasir Arafat are constantly being overlooked for Test matches; a 'home' Test series against South Africa has been scheduled in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) while Pakistan's premier bowler and most potent weapon in Test cricket, Mohammad Asif cannot travel to the desert state. Also, preference of Saeed Ajmal over Abdur Rehman and of Kamran Akmal over the likes of Sarfraz Ahmed and Zulqarnain Haider suggest that heroics in shorter format of the game influence Test team selection.

The team's downfall in Test cricket has not been complemented by its ODI performances. Even in the T20 format, Pakistan has been extremely impressive having remained the World Champion once and ending up as runner-up on another occasion in addition to getting the better of Australia on multiple occasions indicating the team's fascination with the shorter format of the game even at the expense of losing out on Test glory. Today, Australia is considered the world's best team not because it has won three World Cups on the trot but for its continued domination in the longest format of the game.