"I turned to look at my wife, in shock. She was looking at me, in disbelief, too". And so began a fairytale that was cruelly cut short, in less than a week, by stony swingers on a 22-yard turf in East Pakistan, of yore.

Mr & Mrs Khurram Manzoor, the couple referred to here, were the unsuspecting recipients of glad tidings before Valentine’s Day from Haroon Rashid, the still-on-the-job chief selector of Pakistan Cricket Board, who, had just picked the hubby for national duty in the Asia Cup.

Rashid has since rescinded his view of Manzoor’s skills, suggesting that his good intent had "backfired".

If this begins to sound like a sequel to Alice in Wonderland, rest assured, you haven’t heard the last of it, which should make Lewis Caroll’s spirit satiated. Rashid has since also recalled Ahmed Shahzad for the World T20, less than a month after taking pains to discard the ‘selfie king’ of low scoring kings.

"He at least has some experience under his belt," the chief selector whimpered in his defence last week.

As for Shehzad, he never had his doubts where he belonged. Bristling at the surprise sprung on him last month -- ‘surprise’ in his view, I might add, since the vast majority appeared to heave a sigh of relief -- he had this to say to a private TV channel:

"I don’t understand the reason of dropping an established player," before adding, "a player’s form can fluctuate, but ability is something that always remains consistent. I am not disappointed; I am very much satisfied with my performances."

He didn’t say if he derived that satisfaction from scoring 96 runs in 8 T20s at an average of 12 since August last year. Hopefully, he can now burst open the gates on flatter tracks in the World T20.

Talking of opening bursts -- which, in the case of Pakistani openers, usually sound like tyres deflated -- there’s a telling stat from the Asia Cup that tells you half the story of Pakistan’s dwindling fortunes in the shortest format (the other half is about who’s in charge, to which I’ll come in a bit).

Mohammad Hafeez -- the much vaunted ‘professor’ -- joined forces with the ‘heavy-on-hoick’ Sharjeel Khan and the ‘lost-boy-on-the-burning-deck’ Khurram Manzoor for a combined tally of 94 runs in 11 innings at 8.54. It doesn’t take Einstein’s genius to configure that you don’t win even fake encounters in the backyard with grandma bowling like that!

This combustion at the top obviously led the chief selector to look elsewhere and while he did the usual ‘silly point’ round -- he used to be a regular close-in fielder during his playing days -- in allowing himself to be photographed with Salman Butt in a social setting on the eve of selecting the World Cup squad, he could hardly be faulted.

Butt is eligible for selection after serving his sentence and piled on 536 runs at 107.20 to finish second best in the recent National One Day Cup. But that got the goat of the captain -- the other, and more important, half of Pakistan cricket’s current blues: Shahid Afridi.

The enigmatic skipper would have none of it and threatened to walk out if the southpaw was picked. He went on to harp about how Butt had "spoiled" Mohammad Amir, whom, Afridi has conveniently accepted (oh, the difference his return has made!).

Turpitude, betrayal and jealousy, which is all woven into this local Game of Thrones, is perhaps, deserving of a separate piece, but you have to wonder where this misplaced anger and insecurity will take Pakistan cricket. You can write it down here; Butt’s recall is almost inevitable, down the road. One man’s ego has been allowed to dictate course.

But if Afridi insists he can’t look past the past, he would do well to remember his own cherry-bite spectacle in glaring view of the world Down Under -- even if Rana Naveed, the pacer who was bowling when the less-than-revolutionary spin was televised, later clarified it had nothing to do with challenging the aerodynamics of swing. Afridi’s pitch queering dance against England at home is also well documented. The infamous run-ins with coaches, management and half-retirements also do not lend to the folklore in a role model realm.

But one of the biggest draw downs of Afridi’s captaincy -- and in this saga of deceit Coach Waqar Younis has betrayed similar scheming -- is how vice-captain Sarfraz Ahmed has been treated. Again, a story deserving of an elaborate piece, it beggars belief how a genuine game-changer has been pushed to the wall in a studied gambit to prevent him taking over the mantle of leadership.

No-one has quite forgotten how Sarfraz was kept out of the playing eleven until public pressure forced his inclusion during a dying 2015 World Cup campaign, but where he was thrown at the wolves (against South Africa) to set him up for failure. How he turned it on against the run of play, left Waqar deeply embarrassed (he is reported to be loath to the idea of having to deal with a street-smart captain).

Later last year, Afridi and Waqar again excluded Sarfraz from the playing eleven against Sri Lanka in a devious move that shocked the fans.

Here’s a little trivia, that is a telling story on its own, but which has escaped public attention so far. In the last 12 T20 innings under the said honchos, Sarfraz has been whimsically shunted up and down the order like it was a Scorch trial. He has been asked to take strike as opener twice; bat at No 2, 3, 4 and 5 once; go in at No.6 twice; serve out as No.7 once; and take a punt at No.8 thrice!

But what does it say about a captain, who scores two runs in two innings and picks up three wickets in three stints at the Asia Cup, and then has the cheek to tweet the prime minister, no less, "to look into the barriers which are preventing talent from the grass root level to rise and prove their mark" (sic)?

Those searching for an explanation can perhaps, find a nugget in the admission made by PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan himself, who, in response to Afridi’s apparent U-turn on pre-declared retirement at the end of World T20, was forced to reference "Pathan ki zubaan" (a Pathan’s word of honour) as the basis for naming him skipper back in 2014!

Two days later, Khan was trying to persuade Afridi and Waqar not to fight as each raised a litany of complaints against the other. Time was when administrators like Abdul Hafeez Kardar and Nur Khan dispensed with superstars in a minute over matters of principle and here we have poor cousins being pampered as if Pakistan cricket’s life depended on it.