It’s up there with thrashing England. Oh hang on, it’s better.
Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq was handed the pleasant task on Monday of comparing his side’s three-nil series win over England in 2012 with a two-nil sweep of Australia, both in the United Arab Emirates.
Monday’s 356-run victory in the second Test against Australia lifts Pakistan from sixth to third on the ICC rankings, one spot below Australia.
And it came without star spinner Saeed Ajmal who was ruled out of the series because of a chucking ban.
“It’s really tough to rank whatever the best one I had a captain. Either England or now this,” Misbah said.
“Both the teams came to us after playing some wonderful cricket back home so both the series are good to have in the memory.
“But considering the fact that we had a far better bowling combination for the England series and this time despite having an inexperienced bowling line up, nobody could have thought we can turn around and beat Australia.
“But still considering these sort of conditions (in UAE), the way they were struggling against spin even in India, we fancied our chances that we can really do well.
“We knew if we can post good totals our bowling though inexperienced is still capable of getting them out.
“So everybody performed well and it was remarkable.
“So this you can understand is a big achievement.
“This series, you could say best ever series won by us.”
Left-arm spinner Zulfiqar Babar came into the series with only two Tests under his belt, while legspinner Yasir Shah had no Test experience.
Zulfiqar took 14 wickets at 26.35 and Yasir, who taught himself to bowl watching a video of Australian great Shane Warne day after day, claimed 12 at 17.25.
It’s Pakistan’s first Test-series win over Australia since 1994.
The 40-year-old Misbah hit two centuries in the second Test, the sixth and seventh of his career.
It was his 50th Test. And just in case he needed something else to remember the match by, he equalled West Indies’ great Viv Richards’ world record by cracking a hundred off 56 balls.
“We got the belief. That’s why we delivered and everyone performed,” Misbah said modestly.
“Beating Australia two-nil, it’s a great feeling,” he said.
Pope Paul VII
Guest
I'm not being snide. If they had backed themselves Pakistan may have been the top cricketing nation of the last 5 years. Asif and Amir had awesome control. I'm also helpfully pointing out that Pakistan have actually won the last three test between them and were coming in on top. And to win this without Asif, Amir and Ajmal is a credit to them . I love Pakistan cricket. I reckon they chucked the entire 2009/10 series vs Australia, as not only the Sydney Test was suspect but there were several other strange occurrences throughout. I think this was a great shame for Pakistan cricket. It also resulted in Australia believing they were greater than they were and slowed the development of generational growth in the middle order that you see today. I enjoy the contest and would much rather Australia fight for their wins. I don't care if they lose but think they need to get back to 6 batsmen theory or they are in for worse than this. We can only hope The West Indies rise again. I don't know when our blokes play NZ again but they also lost the last one played and NZ bowling is even better. Plenty of work for the Aussies to do.
Perthstayer
Roar Rookie
PP - No-one doubts match fixing is a horrid blight on the game but that is a sore loser snide comment. Do you wheel that one out when Australia lose to South Africa, New Zealand, India, Kenya, West Indies, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka?
Pope Paul VII
Guest
Actually it's 3 wins in row for the Paks. Bowled Australia out for 88 in England in 2010, when they must have had money on themselves for a change.
El Capitan
Guest
Congrats to Pakistan. Now if the Australian selectors gave the same faith to our young upcoming spinners, we might have a chance.