The Pakistan Test team knows what Vladimir and Estragon went through. After what feels like an eternity of waiting (the Sri Lanka series doesn’t count since we were still hungover from T20 euphoria), Pakistan is supposed to play New Zealand in the first of three Tests on November 25. We have a new captain, Mohammad Yousuf, who has taken over in — to put it as politely as possible — dubious circumstances. Ex-skipper Younus Khan would be Lucky in the Waiting for Godot analogy, beaten down and tormented the way he was.

Still, let’s look past the fact that the Pakistan team has six Judases and five Brutuses and figure out how exactly we’re going to beat the Kiwis, who are always dangerous at home.

Openers

The choice is between rookies and retreads. Salman Butt and Imran Farhat have been around for the best past of a decade and neither has shown the aptitude for Test (or indeed any kind of) cricket. Play them both and Pakistan are guaranteed an opening partnership in single and dropped catches in double figures. We’re going with Salman Butt since his continued presence in the squad owes to the selectors’ stupidity, not nepotism. Fawad Alam should be a shoo-in as the second opener. But he prefers playing in the middle order and his footwork is still a little suspect, especially against the new ball. Khurram Manzoor seems decent enough and right now that’s good enough to make him the second coming of Greenidge/Haynes.

One-Down

Let’s not forgot that along with losing our best captain in 20 years, we’ve also lost one of the few batsmen comfortable playing at number three. Continuing their streak of playing Fawad Alam in a different position in every game, Pakistan made the young all-rounder bat one-down in the ongoing match against the New Zealand Invitation XI. As much as with opening the batting, one-down is a specialist position. Since our specialist is currently contemplating the disloyalty of his teammates, Mohammed Yousuf should be made to bat there since he’s the most senior batsman. Plus, he hates batting one-drop, which should be good punishment for what he did to Younus.

Middle Order

In Umar Akmal and Fawad Alam we have two of the most promising batsman in world cricket and hopefully this will be a break-out series for them. With Akmal at four and Alam at six, we can suffer Shoaib Malik’s presence sandwiched between the two. Faisal Iqbal must be really good at filling up bottles with Lucozade and bringing them onto the field. If he isn’t he should start practising it pronto, because that’s all he deserves to do in this series. Yasir Arafat is one of those players — Mark Ealham is the first that comes to mind — that isn’t a good batsmen or bowler but since he can do both badly he gets classified as an all-rounder.

Wicketkeeper

If Kamran Akmal drops even one catch or misses a single stumping his career should be over. Akmal is the worst wicketkeeper in international cricket but somehow keeps scoring runs in crucial situations. Unless he turns into Gilchrist overnight, batting abilities alone aren’t going to cut it.

Bowlers

Umar Gul and Mohammad Asif are automatic choices. It would be great if we could play both Danish Kaneria and Saeed Ajmal but without a fifth bowler (Shoaib Malik isn’t a credible bowler), playing two spinners would be risky. Ajmal would be a safe choice since he’s very steady and can pick up wickets but Kaneria’s the one who can win matches. As a third pacer, the choice is between Mohammed Asif and Abdur Rauf. Before his drug bans Asif was developing into one of the finest bowlers in the world. Let’s play him and if he rediscovers his form we should make sure never to schedule a match in the UAE ever again.