Pakistan celebrate rare win over Aust

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.

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