Pakistan defeats the Ashes Winner by 2-0

        

          Before the series, every cricket fan was hoping for a tight competition between two big test playing nations. One was England who has just defeated Australia in Ashes series. Other was Pakistan who has not lost a home series for last 8 years. And same was the team who had whitewashed England by 3-0 in 2012. Many were thinking that this time England will be taking revenge of that whitewash. But history repeated itself. It seemed to be a sequel of 2012 test series. Pakistan outplayed England expect in first test where there was a neck to neck fight. The reasons for that tight competition were obvious as Pakistan was lacking Yasir Shah; a backbone of Pakistan's bowling attack and Azhar Ali who proved himself a reliable batsman for last couple of years. The series saw many stunning performances from players of both teams. Shoaib Malik scored 245 runs in his very next match after making comeback. Younis Khan completed 9000 runs in test cricket and became first Pakistani to do so. Fans watched some good spell by Wahab Riaz at dead pitch of Abu Dhabi. Alastar Cook and Joe Root gave some brilliant performances in batting. Yasir Shah ended up with 15 wickets in 2 matches and was award as "Man of the series". The most surprising thing was the retirement by Shoaib Malik who had just made his comeback into test squad after 5 years. The hosts jumped up to 2nd in test ranking and visiting team England fell down to 6 in rankings. Now the question is "Can Pakistan maintain such good display in next year's tour of England and Australia?". Lets hope for the best.

   The writer is student of BS English at Government College University, Faisalabad.