By Oliver Brett and Ayanjit Sen
BBC Sport
Pakistan have come a long way from the team who were so dismal in the World Cup.
Who ever would have guessed they would end the year winning a home Test series against South Africa with another in New Zealand effectively in the bag?
In seven Tests since the World Cup they will have won five matches and drawn two by the time they score the runs they need to win in Wellington on Tuesday morning.
And while they have not been quite so imperious in one-day cricket in the same time-frame, they have nevertheless won 15 matches and lost just eight.
The Pakistan Cricket Board took some brave decisions after the World Cup.
Waqar Younis was sacked as captain and with the careers of Wasim Akram and Saeed Anwar at an end, it was time to do what they have always done in the past - blood plenty of youngsters.
On this occasion, they were expected to suffer in the early part of their rehabilitation.
Pakistan’s domestic cricket is thought to be too weak to provide an adequate grounding for the demands of the international circus.
But most of the novices who have been invited to dine at the top table have come good.
The batting star has been Yasir Hameed, who opens in one-day cricket and drops down to three in the longer game to accommodate the specialist Test opener Taufeeq Umar.
He had not played for his country before the World Cup, he has been an ever present since and Younis Khan can hardly get a game.
Hameed already averages around 50 in both forms of the game, with two Test centuries complemented symmetrically by a pair of one-day tons.
In the bowling department, Shoaib Akhtar has been grabbing the headlines for all the right reasons.
And now he has some strong support in the shape of seamers Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammad Sami, and the ever-improving leg-spinner Danish Kaneria.
Former Pakistani opening batsman Mudassar Nazar can rightly claim to have influenced the current success of the team having coached the National Cricket Academy.
“Eight players in the current Pakistani national team are from the NCA and I feel proud of them,” he told the BBC.
He cannot wait to see them play the long-awaited Test series at home to India in March - a contest that will ooze with quality as well as the usual adversarial spice.
All that Mudassar wants now is a good all-rounder, and he is critical of Abdul Razzaq, who performs the function in Tests.
“His bowling pace has rapidly reduced and also there are a few worries with his batting,” says Mudassar.
Nevertheless, the all-rounders lend flexibility to the one-day squad, with Shoaib Malik and Azhar Mahmood both capable of match-winning performances with bat or ball.
Ironically, coach Javed Miandad and chief selector Aamir Sohail barely see eye-to-eye.
But even if they can never agree with each other, for now Sohail keeps picking the right players and Miandad keeps on convincing them they can take on the world.
All, for now at least, looks rosy in the Pakistani flower bed.