Inzamam-ul-Haq and Bennett King spoke to the media at the end of the series

Osman Samiuddin at Karachi16-Dec-2006

‘I am very happy with the way our fast bowlers have done in this series’ © Getty Images
It is tempting, in the aftermath of an emphatic win and an equallyconvincing series triumph, to underplay the significance of this entireseries. But after the traumas of the England tour and the ChampionsTrophy, any win is to be welcomed.For Inzamam-ul-Haq, glowing no doubt from being chosen the best fielder ofthe entire series, a winning return as captain was a definite relief.”Victories will always improve the confidence and morale of a team, anywin,” he told the media after Pakistan’s series-clinching seven-wickettriumph at the National Stadium in Karachi. “After the disappointments inEngland and India, we needed to win and in that sense this is an importantresult for us.”Intangibles like confidence and morale aside, there were specific gains forPakistan in the emergence of Abdur Rehman and the return to form of RanaNaved-ul-Hasan. Rehman was impressive again today, with two more wickets,one a particularly pleasant stumping off Marlon Samuels.It was Rana’s exemplary death-overs spell though which reaped the awardsand ultimately proved pivotal to the result, mixing yorkers and slowerballs with the smoothness of a cocktail barman. Lack of full fitness robbed him of his sharpness in England and India but 11 wickets inthe ODI series made for a worthy Man-of-the-Series performance. It alsomeans, with the probable returns of Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Asif (and evenShabbir Ahmed), the progress of Umar Gul and an encouraging comeback fromMohammad Sami, that Pakistan’s pace reserves are frighteningly vast.Choosing the right combination will be a particularly pleasant headache.”I am very happy with the way our fast bowlers have done in this series,”beamed Inzamam. “These pitches aren’t great for fast bowling but all ofour bowlers did exceptionally well on them. Shoaib and Asif are excellentbowlers and no doubt their return will bolster our attack. But thatdoesn’t mean that those who did well here will be overlooked.”Options for openers are also plentiful, and Pakistan tried out yet anothercombination today – successfully at least – but the headache is not sotolerable here. Mohammad Hafeez and Kamran Akmal both enjoyed themselvesand Akmal’s maiden ODI fifty was also his first significant score in hislast 24 ODIs. That hundred came at this ground too, almost exactly a yearago. Inzamam though stayed schtum on whether a pair had been finalised.”We have experimented with openers over the series and one or two playersare doing well now. We have an idea of who they will be for the World Cup.But we have enough options and Imran Farhat was rested today. We alsowanted to see Yasir Hameed and he is in good form too, so it isn’t so muchof a problem at the moment.”The West Indies certainly won’t look for too much meaning in this result.A listless defeat wasn’t the best way to end an arduous three-month roadtrip but fruits have emerged, particularly in the shape of performancesfrom some of their younger players.It wasn’t from a lack of confidence that the tourists came away withlittle by way of results on this tour, as Bennett King, their coach,reflected. But as today proved, when they lost their way in the last tenovers, plans weren’t always executed as well as they could have been.Still, encouragement can be gleaned.”It has been a learning curve for the younger guys. We have had somesuccess over this period, making it to the finals of two competitions. Wedesperately wanted to draw this series but it wasn’t to be but I thinkeveryone has learnt something from this tour,” King said.The sides will reacquaint themselves in three months’ time now, in rathermore meaningful circumstances – the small matter of the opening game ofthe 2007 World Cup. What happened here, King insisted, will not matterthen. “We will be ready for Pakistan when they come for that and I am surethey will be ready for us too. We’ve progressed a fair bit from when welast met Pakistan in the West Indies (they lost the ODI series 3-0) sowe’re looking forward to that.” As indeed will the rest of the world.