Salahuddin Ahmed (Sallu) Photo © CricInfo

The Pakistan cricket team has lost at Lord's and badly so. What's worse, the defeat was to a large extent self-inflicted, with England outplaying Waqar and his charges in all departments of the game. Yet, Pakistan may have escaped the ignominy of innings defeat had Peter Willey, the much-touted home umpire, not made two crucial mistakes on day four, sending back the most experienced Inzamam-ul-Haq and the in-form Younis Khan.

However, the Pakistanis must blame themselves for a thoroughly inept performance, that after they had won the toss. But they simply threw away that huge advantage by first quite inexplicably leaving Saqlain Mushtaq out and then, with the exception of Azhar Mahmood, the all-pace attack bowled too short and erratic on an easy-paced wicket. That allowed England batsmen to post 391, making sure they weren't going to lose the match.

Had Azhar not bowled as well as he did, pitching the ball up to allow it to swing through the air and taking vital wickets as a result, Pakistan's plight would have been far worse.

Quite amazingly, Wasim and Waqar, the two most experienced and most suited to take advantage of English conditions, failed to bowl to their tremendous ability. To add insult to injury, the Pakistani bowlers didn't seem learn a lesson from the plastering they received on day one. They did not revise their methods, and that, combined with the fielding that swung between pathetic and ordinary, saw to it that a big total was staring them in the face.

Pakistan's turn to bat, and to our great dismay, we found out that our batsmen were too keen to hang their bats outside off-stump, playing away from their body and thus kept losing wickets rather cheaply. Younis Khan played a lone hand in the first innings as did Razzaq in the second, each posting a score of 50-odd. It was never going to be enough. That on a turf which was easy-paced and perfect for batting – the kind I was genuinely surprised to see in May in England. One only had to stay at the wicket, and the rest would have followed. When he applied himself at the fag end, even Waqar Younis almost made England bat again!

To me it was quite surprising, because I thought most of our players had enough experience of English conditions to come good. After all, players like Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram, Saeed Anwar, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Rashid Latif cannot blame it on lack of exposure. For most of them, it was a third or fourth tour of England, and the two W's had loads of county experience to boot. And if England can come here and win, why should we try and hide behind the excuse of the conditions there, which in any case were not that bad at Lord's. What does it reflect, other than a clear lack of preparation and dedication?

The result of Pakistan's total surrender is that Andrew Caddick and Darren Gough are being lionized into world-beaters. I would rather wait and see them repeating the same feat against Australia.

It goes without saying that the defeat has made the team and the PCB a butt of serious criticism. I do not intend to add anything to that, at least for the moment. Another Test match – at Manchester from May 31 – remains to be played and the morale of the team at this low time should not be further dented. I cannot, however, fail to add that Pakistan would need to tighten up their act quite a bit. They would need to do some soul-searching and go back to the drawing board. The high-priced foreign coaches must deliver and help develop a strategy, which could make this team rise from the ashes. Mind you, it does have the potential. What it needs is not making those elementary mistakes, like leaving Saqlain Mushtaq out – who is quite a handful on all sorts of wickets – and then bowling, fielding and batting the way they did at Lord's.

It's just a matter of finding that level of motivation and commitment to do it right. If they do, they might make a comeback and level the series.

Ed: Salahuddin Ahmed (Sallu) is a former Test cricketer, and has served as a PCB selector nine times; his last stint (1999-2000) was as chief selector.

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