Pakistan have gained in confidence

Skipper Shoaib Malik led his team to a morale-boosting win at Jaipur, which was much needed ahead of a tough Test series.

For me, Pakistan lost the series but gained a lot of confidence from the last game. A paradigm shift was needed in their approach as I felt they were quite negative in the previous outings.

They looked positive in the last match and went in with the aggression that had been missing.

The captain was making the right decisions and he took some pressure on himself to bowl his full quota of overs after a long time. I think it is a healthy sign for the team.

On the other hand, if we talk about the Indian team, it is not a mere coincidence that both times Pakistan won the match, the ball was bouncing a bit more by Indian standards and the pacers felt at home.

If one has to summarize the series and highlight the reasons why India won, it was because the Pakistani batsmen struggled against spinners and the Indian batsmen handled the spinners quite efficiently.

So, in my opinion, when India reach Australia, they will have a hard time adapting to the pitches there as they will need to cope with the extra pace and bounce if they wish to succeed against the most dominant force in world cricket.

Coming back to the match, Pakistan showed urgency and desire in this game which was exemplified by Malik. He was positive, proactive and put in exactly the sort of performance that one expects from the leader of a pack.

On the other hand, India stuttered with the loss of wickets in bunches and could not recover.

It was vital for the visitors to be aggressive and hustle a victory.

This was achieved with another change at the top of the order as Butt and Nazir took guard to Sreesanth and debutant Praveen Kumar.

Butt proceeded to take toll of a rusty Sreesanth whilst Kumar’s opening spell, bar one over, was steady as Pakistan reached 64 without loss in 12 overs.

Disaster struck as Sreesanth’s triple-strike upset Pakistan’s tone, as Butt ambitiously tried to pull, Hameed came and went to one that bounced and left him, and Nazir’s return blow was well held by the bowler.

With Malik joining an in-form Yousuf at 77-3, the innings was slowly rebuilt as both men rotated the strike and gathered boundaries to gain momentum.

Pakistan went into the last 10 overs at 225-3, as both men picked off the slower bowlers, before Malik charged Kartik and was stumped for a solidly complied 89.

Yousuf was denied a century as he lost his balance and was neatly stumped for 74.

The double-strike caused a pendulum like swing, however, with runs on the board and the seamers not so threatening on this track, Misbah and Fawad, kept the board moving with some lusty hitting to help their side to 306.

India’s reply faltered from the outset as Tanvir bustled in to wrap Gambhir on the pads. Undeterred, Tendulkar unleashed the shot of the day off Gul.

Malik sensing trouble, summoned his first-change bowler, Rao, who immediately justified his call by inducing another snick off the promoted Uthappa.

A double-strike from Tanvir set the cat amongst the pigeons. Firstly, he angled one across Tendulkar, who edged to slip and then handed his wicketkeeper a big name debut dismissal as Sehwag flashed behind to make it 62-4.

Youngster Rohit Sharma settled down to accumulate an 81-run partnership with an out of sorts Yuvraj before needlessly holing out to long-on for 52.

Unfortunately, unlike previous games, Dhoni and Yuvraj were not able to see their side across the finishing line.