There is this thing called the Infinite Monkey Theorem, which states, roughly, that:
A monkey randomly typing on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time would, as part of its output, almost surely produce all of Shakespeare's plays.
A variant of this theorem is also referred to as the "Law of Probability".
I bring this up because our batsmen are like monkeys, and their bats are the typewriters. They fail more often than not, they crumble like a house of cards only to leave the bowlers with all the work. However, the batting order did not function well in any of the 3 Tests against New Zealand (yes, even the second innings of the third Test played on a batting heaven). This leads me to believe that our monkeys are overdue for a masterpiece, and I will go out on a limb here and predict that said masterpiece will occur in this series. Maybe not the first Test, but I believe the time is right for our batting order to collectively win a match all on its own.
That said, we will still rely very heavily on our bowling attack. The bowling potential we have on this tour is pretty much unrivaled in international cricket; Gul, Ajmal, Sami, Asif, Kaneria, Aamer - each name has more match-winning potential than the previous. We even have the unknown elements in Abdur Rauf and Fawad Alam, with the latter being quite handy with the bat at times. Hence, if the tracks of Australia remain as friendly as they have been in the past for bowlers, then our batsmen will only have to do a "decent enough" job to give our bowlers something to bowl at. Their batsmen are no joke, but I believe our bowling attack can confound the best batting attack on their day.
Lastly, the most overlooked yet the most disturbing aspect of Pakistan Cricket, fielding. I really hope Waqar Younis, our new fielding coach, gave Pakistani players a good thrashing after the NZ series. It was well overdue. Let's also hope that the thrashing did some good, and we can at least hold on to the simple catches.
All said, we should win at least one Test based on our bowling (our batting is bound to click). Let's just hope that our bowling attack doesn't pull the inverse of the Infinite Monkey Theorem by throwing away a Test, and let's hope that our batting and fielding do at least the minimum required to support the bowlers.
Now, the series begins in about 15 minutes, so I'm going to go make some tea. Good luck Pakistan, win or lose, we are behind you. Make us proud.
