Pakistan’s thumping 2-0 victory against the formidable Australians in the UAE have catapulted them into the top three of the ICC rankings in world cricket, an honour that has come their way after almost eight years.

It was, indeed, an extraordinary performance from Misbah-ul-Haq and his men who remained undaunted by the Aussie juggernaut to outplay them in every department.

For once, it was heartening to see the Pakistani batsmen stealing the limelight as they rewrote the record books with a plethora of records. The run riot was led by the inimitable Younis Khan who scored three centuries in four innings of the series while skipper Misbah also regained his form in breath-taking fashion to equal the fastest hundred world record created by Sir Vivian Richards in 1986.

Azhar Ali, Ahmed Shehzad, Sarfraz Ahmed and Asad Shafiq were also among the runs, backed superbly by the lethal spin duo of Zulfiqar Babar and Yasir Shah who completely mesmerized the Michael Clarke’s armywith their guile and repertoire. So all in all a tremendous team effort that will be remembered for a long time to come.

Today, Pakistan embark upon another Test series, this time against New Zealand who is obviously not that highly ranked as the Aussies. However, as they say in cricket, and in life too, every day is a new day and a new beginning.

While Pakistan are riding the crest of a wave after beating the Aussies, the New Zealanders have many new players in their squad, especially in their bowling line-up, which gives them a slight advantage compared to the Aussies.

Both their spinners Mark Craig and Ish Sodhi will be up against our batsmen for the first time, so will the all-rounders Jimmy Neesham and Corey Anderson. From whatever little I have heard about off-spinner Craig, he did very well during his debut series in the West Indies and New Zeland’s dashing captain Brendon McCullum and coach Mike Hesson both have shown a lot of faith in the youngster’s abilities thus far.

New leggie Ish Sodhi is also likely to make the playing eleven today after he took five wickets in the drawn fixture against Pakistan ‘A’.

The Black Caps batting revolves around McCullum, the ever-reliable Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson who have all been scoring prolifically over the past few years.

Having said that, I am still confident that our lethal duo of spin twins Zulfiqar and Yasir have enough arsenal in their armoury to outfox the Kiwi batsmen in the series. What has impressed me most about the two is their control against both right and lft-handed batsmen. Zulfiqar, besides his leg-spinners, have a fine arm ball that goes the other way while Yasir also have a flipper up his sleeve to shock the batsmen every now and then.

Our only slight weak link at the moment seems to be all-rounder Mohammad Hafeez who is not only struggling with his batting, he is rather cautious about his bowling too, obviously mindful of the ‘chucking’ crackdown that nearly had him grounded two months ago. This scenario makes a solid case for young Shan Masood who once again scored a half-century against the Kiwis in the Pakistan ‘A’ game to nudge the selectors.

He has a good technique and a fine temperament which he displayed in his debut series against South Africa last year. With so many young players now coming good for Pakistan in quick succession, I feel Shan deserves another chance against the New Zealanders in the current series and will surely do well.

More importantly, it is imperative for Pakistan to keep the winning momentum going against the Kiwis after comprehensively beating the Aussies. Skipper Misbah has also expressed his resolve for yet another whitewash and that’s the correct approach that a captain can adopt on the eve of any contest.

Lastly, a word about the progress the Pakistan Cricket Board is making with the efforts of its top two officials – chairman Shaharyar M Khan and president-designate ICC Najam Sethi.

Shaharyar Khan, besides taking sound measures to resurrect Pakistan cricket which includes domestic cricket revamp plan and revival of school cricket, has achieved a lot during his recent tour of Asian countries including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. His efforts are already bearing fruit with some of these nations discussing the possibility of their ‘A’ team tours to Pakistan besides sending other outfits.

As for Sethi, I strongly feel that his inter-personal skills and good relations with the fellow cricket boards that he cultivated during his tenure as the PCB chief, are going to pay rich dividends for the country very soon. Though some critics are still pointing out that a former cricketer would have suited the ICC president’s job more, I want to say to them that the history of Pakistan cricket is replete with such examples where technocrats have done wonderfully well at the helm and there is no reason why Sethi will not excel in his latest assignment.

Technocrats such as Khalid Mahmood, General Zahid Ali Akbar, Arif Abbasi and few others enjoyed successful stints as heads of PCB over the past decades. While Khalid’s term saw Pakistan winning the Sahara Cup, the Asia Cup and playing the 1999 World Cup final, both the World Cups in the sub-continent were staged during Abbasi’s time. And it was in Gen Zahid’s tenure that Pakistan won the 1992 World Cup in Australia-New Zealand. So my best wishes to Sethi for his stint at the ICC where he is bound to make an impact despite it being a ceremonial post.

The writer is a former Test cricketer and chief selector

Published in Dawn, November 9th , 2014