Sum greater than whole

Such is the fickleness of the game. Had it rained at Wellington on the final day of the second test, Inzamam-ul-Haq's decision to head off the field the previous evening with only 28 runs required and inclement weather awaiting the following day, might have gone down as the worst decision in international cricket. Instead, the weather eased up just enough to allow Pakistan to romp home to a seven-wicket win, a 1-0 series win and all was forgotten.

Given the Houdini-like nature of victory, when defeat seemed inescapable on the fourth morning; given that it was achieved in testing conditions abroad; and given that it was a team that not many people in New Zealand would have recognised, this triumph should be judged alongside the best of Pakistan's recent wins abroad - the '87 double over India and England or the '99 win over India. The series wins at home against Bangladesh had been scratchy, and the Multan thriller apart, not memorable. The series against South Africa finally saw some shape, and little steel, emerging within the team, but this series was always going to be the litmus test as far as progress since the World Cup was concerned.

The batting is alas acquiring, albeit slowly, a sense of responsibility. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the last test, where a testing target (and one never before achieved on the ground) was hunted down with a professionalism that suggested a familiarity with the pressures of a large run chase. It is far from solid and still prone to lapses, but Yasir Hameed's continuing emergence suggests that the problematic, but essential, one-down puzzle may be unraveled soon enough. And although Hameed has yet to shrug off the chains of random impetuosity, his performances over the last six months hint at the arrival, not only of a quality batsman, but a stylish one. The openers struggled but logic of stability dictates that they must be persevered with for some time. Moin's return has also helped, injecting some much-needed resolve in a longish tail, and the magnitude of his presence was exemplified by his fighting century at Hamilton.

But it is again to the bowling that we must turn for the biggest accolades. For all the theatre that Shoaib Akhtar, and to a lesser extent, Mohammad Sami provided with their own interpretations of the Hobbesian state of nature (where life is short, brutish and nasty), the real find, for Pakistan, was the gangly and unheralded Shabbir Ahmed. Atypical for a Pakistani pacer in that he doesn't rely on pace, but instead on the relatively sober and unglamorous virtues of line, length and bounce, Shabbir has grown in stature with every outing over the last six months.

While genuine fast bowlers have been two a paisa over the last fifteen years, fast-medium bowlers willing to bowl into the wind, to a consistent line and length, strangle the run flow and pick up wickets have been harder to find. Aaqib Javed, briefly, and Ata-ur-Rehman, irregularly, plugged this gap, but neither had the awkward bounce which makes Shabbir special. Just as for every Brett Lee you must have a McGrath, Shabbir ensures that the occasionally erratic and often spectacular nature of his quicker counterparts is balanced out by his miserly, yet penetrative, efforts.

Shoaib and Sami have done everything except bowl well in tandem, as Wasim and Waqar did, but that too will come, as the younger partner becomes more consistent, and the older continues to mature as he is doing.

More than any individual part however, it is now the sum of the whole that is looking increasingly impressive for Pakistan. So often fractious and disjointed in the past, a young team, shed of the shadows of older players, is beginning to look like a unit. Crucially, the strength in depth, one of Aamer Sohail's objectives, is looking rosy.

With Asim Kamal and Younis Khan backing up the middle order, Shoaib Malik, Umar Gul and Saqlain Mushtaq, Pakistan have the players and resources to give any team a fight. Inzamam's captaincy (and the two words are not the natural bedfellows one would assume), is at an embryonic stage at the moment. He has seemed more comfortable than many might have imagined but has often tended to let a game drift. Happily, his batting has seemed unaffected by the added burdens. With the small matter of a series against India round the corner, the strength in depth, the unity, and Inzamam's captaincy will be put to its severest test to date.