The name’s Afridi, Shahid Afridi and he is one of the smartest cricketers you’ll ever come across on a cricket field. He can take wickets in tough conditions; hold onto catches that seem difficult and hit a 6 when the team most wants it. Sadly that smartness doesn’t extend to the mind most of the time and with fans backing him up all the time, he doesn’t need to use his brain at all.

In the recently concluded Pakistan-England T20 series, most of the fans realised that they have been backing the wrong horse for a long time. Why did Pakistan lose the series 3-0 when the result could have been 2-1 (with Pakistan winning two matches at least), considering it’s a team made up of legends.

Every time a mega event is near, senior cricketers in the Pakistan team start performing but as soon as the event begins, their form takes a plunge downwards. History is repeating itself even today where Shoaib Malik is performing well; Shahid Afridi is in the squad since he is the best available captain; Mohammad Hafeez finds a place at number 3 because 5 matches ago he scored an ODI century and Sohail Tanvir is there because he is Sohail Tanvir.

The always-in-the-news Umar Akmal is also back in the XI due to his past exploits (which happened half a decade ago) and so are some cricketers who are dear to the captain (that’s Ahmed Shehzad, the new Fawad Alam!).

If you select team like that rather than on merit, debacles happen and the Pak-Eng T20 series was nothing short of one.

They can’t hit direct throws yet they expect to beat a youthful English side that literally lives on T20 cricket for a living; they can’t decide which end to run for yet believe they can overcome the fathers of modern cricket; the batsmen play more dot balls in T20 international than all the other teams combined yet they are always confident of winning matches and they don’t field spinners against England hoping that the no-Yorker pacers will dismiss the opposition at a low score.

These things must change; Hafeez’s suicidal running is an issue and must be addressed for the sake of the team, not him. The people opting to drop Mohammad Irfan in T20s must be held accountable for their deeds.

The people who succumbed to Afridi’s pressure must come out to defend their credibility and tell the fans why such a team was fielded.

Pakistan’s performance in the Super Over in the third match was more or less as good as the expectations. They were the first team to feature in a bowl-out in 2007 and lost the plot against better-prepared Indians in South Africa. Same thing happened with the hockey team where they succumb to pressure in penalty shootouts ever since the new rule was introduced.

Keeping the tradition alive, the brainless captain decided to bat in the crucial Super Over with the most talented batsman in the whole galaxy -- Umar Akmal (pun intended); and the two managed to score less runs than deliveries bowled. Even in his wildest dreams Eoin Morgan may not have dreamt that his bowler wouldn’t let Pakistan score six runs in a Super Over but hey, the team that doesn’t score on Free Hits can be expected to score three runs off six balls. Had the score been a little competitive; had someone more capable to hit boundaries than take singles off alternative deliveries been sent; had the captain used his brain instead of his heart that goes out to every stupid cricketer on the planet, things might have been different.

Pakistan dropped to number 6 in the ICC T20 Rankings. The Eoin Morgan-led side played the series as their final test ahead of the World T20; our test will be the domestic T20 championship that will be hastily arranged after India drops the façade and tells the PCB that they are least interested in playing cricket against them.

Instead of looking at the future and axing all non-performing players to make way for fresh legs, Pakistan will select more or less the same players for the World T20 who represented themselves against England, wearing the Pakistan kit as a window dressing.

That’s how things work in Pakistan; that’s how things will work next year as well. God save Pakistan cricket!