End of a long tour

Pakistan team has returned from a four month long tour of England. Several things stand out from this tour.
I think that the first noteworthy point is Afridi's incompetence at captaincy. He's been in and out of captaincy and he's been playing cricket for a long time now. He should've learnt his lessons by now. Granted Pakistani fielding is not good, but he has thrown away bowling advantage over and over due to defensive tactics. Time and again, when the batting side can be taken under pressure, he has applied defensive tactics, concentrating on saving runs instead of attacking to take wickets.
Second, I think Shoaib Akhtar staged a nice comeback. I didn't expect much of him, but he bowled well out there. For the first time, I am of the opinion that he should be included in the side consistently. I think he has shown signs of maturity.
Thirdly, no need to even mention the childishness and unreasonably defensive response shown by Pakistan Cricket Board over reactions to as yet unproven match fixing allegations.

To fix or not to fix

Today's edition of The News carries this interesting news item. The item is based on a correspondent's conversation with former Pakistan test cricketer, Aamir Sohail. Aamir Sohail has done a really thorough and interesting analysis of the issue.
Aamir's analysis has strengthened my hunch that the Pakistani team is unfairly caught in a mess they did not create. According to Aamir, the whole thing is based on a war between legal and illegal bookies. He says that the former are pissed off that the latter are scooping up lots of their profits. The legal bookies, he mentions, pay taxes and sponsor cricketing events and are not happy at losing millions of Pounds (Sterlings, not in body weight).