Sri Lanka have never won a three-match T20 series 3-0. Pakistan have never been whitewashed in a three-match series and yet the history-holding tables turned over on Wednesday as the visitors sealed the deal with a historic cleansweep victory. It’s flabbergasting that Sri Lanka brought in five new faces into the playing XI that had won the previous two games and still managed to come out victorious. It’s even crazier that they have achieved this feat with the likes of Malingas, Mathewses, Pereras, Mendises and Dickwellas not even accompanying the national team on their tour of Pakistan. 

It’s nearly a fortnight since Misbah-ul-Haq got hold of the reigns of Pakistan Cricket but the national team already seems to be slipping into disarray. This tour was an early banana skin for the newly appointed Chief Selector and Head Coach and Pakistan have been miserably humiliated in their own backyard. In front of an adoring home crowd filled with passion and valor, the team that has defeated the best of the best while globe-trotting, surrendered to a second-stringed Sri Lankan side lidded with absolutely little to no experience and international exposure. 

Cricketing fanatics and experts are left baffled by the outcomes at Lahore and cannot help but wonder that is it really the same Pakistani side that brushed away T20-specializing teams for fun, pummeled Australia in Harare to grasp the Tri-Series trophy, outgunned New Zealand in Auckland and stringed together 29 victories from 33 games they contested in since the conclusion of the World T20 in 2016? Certainly not the same Pakistan that showed up on their home turf over the course of last seven days.

As much as the team selections were heavily criticized, the on-field strategies rose equal number of eyebrows. The returning Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad couldn’t justify their call-up, yet again. While Shehzad had a tormenting time in the middle whenever he went out to bat, Akmal succumbed on the very first deliveries he faced in the first two games and was consequently left out of the dead rubber. Pakistan’s fielding standards have been dwindling ever since Steve Rixon departed their ranks. Their abysmal show in the field was frequently highlighted in the series. 

The pattern in the series had been well-defined. Sri Lanka batting first, putting up competitive totals on the board and Pakistan losing the plot when the visitors tightened the noose. Sarfraz Ahmed, the incumbent skipper in whom the faith has been put reluctantly, failed to pull out heroics from his pockets. Instead, his strike rate throughout the series spoke volumes of his incapability of slogging big in the format, something that should be considered an absolute given in T20s in this day and age.

Pakistan is briskly losing hold of its T20 global standing. They have been on the receiving end in five of the six matches they have contested this year. The likes of Hasan Ali and Shadab Khan who helped reshape Pakistan’s bowling battery according to the current international standards are not amongst the reliables, anymore. The former has been sidelined from the team, the latter suffering through a lean run. Fakhar Zaman, the fire-lighter at the top of the order, has not been lasting long for quite a while now. In fact, the last time he scored in excess of 25 in a T20I match was almost a year ago, in Harare. 

The scepticism and scrutiny that Misbah has received since the closure of the series was unprofessionally turned down by the former Pakistani skipper who is considered to be amongst the most brilliant cricketing minds in the country. Misbah has been roped in for these roles with no prior coaching experience and had a point to prove to justify his spot. The re-selections of Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal and their never-ending failures, invalidated Misbah’s honeymoon and got him off to a stiff start as far as his responsibilities are concerned. 

While speaking to the media, Misbah couldn’t help but respond with tonge-in-cheek answers to the fair criticism thrown at him by the journalistic media:
"Maybe I did something? Probably I made our right-hand batsmen switch to left-handed batting or maybe made our right-handers bowl with the left arm or vice-versa?"  

"It's an example for us the way they have beaten us in every department," Misbah also said. "They won the games in almost one-sided fashion leaving us in tatters and with lots of questions to answer. We played very poor cricket and definitely it's my responsibility but I am still thinking what really happened because these are the same set of players that have been playing for long and made the team No. 1." 

Pakistan are hitting this newly-discovered at the worst possible time with the World T20 scheduled for late next year. It’s high time that someone realizes how quickly their performances are sloping downwards so as something could be done to tackle the failures and build a team that could contend for the global glory.