My Favourite Sports Team at the Moment

Written by Mawande.

The Pakistan national cricket team have been outstanding in their performances in the Test matches against England out in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, recording a crushing whitewash victory against Test cricket’s number 1 ranked team.

Going into the current series, few would have bet that with a game to left to play Pakistan would have had the test series wrapped up and make the Englishmen look very ordinary. The sparkling bowling of spinners Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman have caught the eye at a time when several young and exciting fast bowlers are emerging in test cricket. And apart from England’s Graeme Swann, there hasn’t been a match-winning spinner in international cricket for a while and in this series Pakistan have unearthed two!

Saeed Ajmal: Devastating

Most admirable in my mind is that prior to the series, the English media focused on the unsavoury off-field incident that plagued the previous England/ Pakistan series, but the Pakistanis didn’t let that distract them and in fact used that to motivate themselves and went about their business on the field of play in the most sensational manner.

Pakistan celebrate after making test cricket look easy.

The England team had not lost their previous 9 test series so it had to take something special to dismantle their challenge in this contest. I haven’t seen an England team that has looked this average since Michael Vaughan’s days as captain. Jonathan Trott and Alistair Cook aside, none of the England batsmen have put together any big scores or an innings of substance, resisting the belligerent Ajmal and Rehman. Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq has to be commended on his forward-thinking in the way he used his spinners, not afraid to toss them the new ball and setting fields to attack the England batsmen.

The feat that the Pakistan cricket team has achieved in comprehensively beating the England team convincingly in all three tests is massive and one that deserves a lot of acclaim. Hopefully, the Pakistanis will build on these victories, step away from the negative image that has attached itself to their team in recent times and become the great team that produced greats like Imraan Khan, Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram.