This is my take on the year that we had in test cricket.
- Played well against South Africa. It's not our problem that their captain looked clueless and uninterested. 10/10
- Played well against Bangladesh. No disrespect to Bangladesh but the fact that the second test went close was down to the weather and not Bangladesh playing good cricket so the Pakistan team gets extra marks for the match but only because of the weather interruptions. The series result however was expected so the feeling was more "Job done" instead of "Woah remarkable". 10/10
- Yawn fest against Zimbabwe. Don't even remember what happened in the tests there. Not part of WTC hence no need to actually even give this series any points.
- Dropped (yes Hassan Ali, I remember) a test to West Indies which I feel will come back to haunt us. 5/10
- Got thrashed in New Zealand in the worst possible way. 0/10
The negatives:
1. An unsettled opening pair that failed to provide starts of any kind against good bowling.
2. Azhar as number three is such an outdated choice. He doesn't score fast enough if the openers have provided a start, he doesn't stick long enough if the openers fall early & he's scared to open despite being a number 3.
3. Babar's form was terrible and he gets dominated by bowlers for an entire series. Muzurbani and Maharaj are not bowlers who should dominate someone like Babar but that's how it went.
4. Second and third seamers are still not locked in. Our second seamer is very condition-dependent and inconsistent. This damaged us when we toured New Zealand and will continue to be the same if we don't work on fixing it.
5. The absence of a lead spinner. We have no idea who our best spinner is for different conditions.
The positives:
1. Babar is emerging as a leader. The challenges so far aren't astronomical but he has shown glimpses of leadership. The nation has rallied behind him and even casual viewers are actually beginning to take interest in cricket because of him. If he performs well for a year or so, we may have our first modern batting superstar which is a pretty good thing in the long run.
2. We may have stumbled upon an opener in Abdullah. He looks good and organized against spinners, let's see how he manages to handle pace bowlers in different conditions.
3. In Babar, Rizwan, & Shaheen we have three potential pillars on which an all-condition team can be built.
4. Getting rid of some deadwood was nice. We need to be a bit more ruthless to keep the trend going.
I honestly feel it's time to let some seniors go and introduce a few youngsters to the team. Saud opened for the Shaheens with Abdullah and that's a combination that we should look into. Babar should move up to number three and try to control the innings instead of hiding behind a dour number three. We may need to have someone aggressive like Haider in the team as well and hopefully, we can introduce him to the team in our home series.
We also need to have a better backup wicketkeeper now and there's no need to carry Sarfaraz like a holy symbol of unity. Rohail can bat a bit but his keeping is flawed, Haris is an excellent keeper but his batting is a worry. None of them are ready for international cricket so someone needs to work with them and get them ready.
Our spin bowling unit did the work but stronger challenges are waiting for us. Is Sajid Khan good enough to lead the attack? Is Nauman going to run through teams on his own? Has Yasir still got some gas left in the tank? Should we give Shadab a run now to see what he can do in red-ball cricket? Is Nawaz now able to bowl long spells and be consistent? Is Zafar finally able to catch flights and take wickets? Is Mubassir someone we can rely upon as a spin-bowling all-rounder? There are honestly more questions than answers for us at the moment related to spin bowling.
Shaheen bowled well and this year felt like his cricketing coming of age but what else other than him. Hassan needs the pitch to be rough so his skiddy inswingers become hard to read for the batters. Faheem feels as if he's bowling in slow-motion for 99.9% of his deliveries and then bowls a ball that gets Williamson to nick it to the keeper out of the blue. Abbas at times feels so slow that the batters literally can take a nap in between the time the ball has left his hand to the time it reaches the batter. He was also truly nullified by the batters stepping out of their crease. Do we go back to Naseem, has he improved enough to be considered test class now? Should we give Rauf a surprise call-up? Is Dahani going to be the first lad from Larkana who's going to get Smith to have nightmares? I just hope our selectors don't go into the "if it's not broken, it doesn't need fixing" mode as our bowling is truly broken at the moment even if it doesn't seem so. We have had easy series this year, we cannot go forward with the same thinking anymore if we wish to be a better team.
I think we are a number 5 test team at the moment but we do have the potential to enter in the top four if we continue improving over the next two years. The teams above us have reliable strengths; Australia - fast bowling, England - seam & swing, New Zealand - seamers; but also visible weaknesses that give us a chance to leapfrog them in rankings. Only India is a truly all-condition team but we don't play them so it's a non-issue. We will also face serious competition from Sri Lanka and South Africa to maintain our number 5 position, one is emerging nicely (Sri Lanka), and the other one doesn't stay down for too long. We should set a more realistic goal of being number 3 at the end of 2022, and find a way to sneak into the WTC final for 2023. For both these objectives, the seeds were sowed this year and hopefully, we can reap some rewards going forward.
All in all, 2021 was an okay year and we can use this to build our team for the challenges for the future, and then maybe some years down the line, we can look back at 2021 and say that this is the year when "Babar's era" began. (InshAllah)
Zindabaad!!!! 
.Win somthing note for in SENA countries then we can say its memorable performance.
