Cricket World Cup: Which team will your shirt be on? A nation by nation guide to the Cricket World Cup - Paskistan

VERDICT: They have all the components required to win the World Cup, but they will probably not do so. Pakistan might be in form but are still riven by internal dissent and suspicion. The return of Wasim Akram as captain has undoubtedly improved morale and form. Whatever happens they will be worth watching. There is not a bland player in the side and in Saeed Anwar, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Saqlain Mushtaq, Shoaib Akhtar and Wasim himself they have a handful of match-winners.

EMERGING HERO: Shoaib Akhtar is handsome, pleasant, athletic and extremely fast. He may indeed be the fastest of them all. He bowls a mean, reverse- swinging yorker and a frightening bouncer. The game's next big star.

ACHILLES' HEEL: The match-rigging scandal will not disappear. After four years the waters are still muddy and the inclusion in the squad of Salim Malik, one of those most heavily implicated, is surely not designed to assist a smooth passage.

HISTORICAL POINT: Pakistan had lost three of their first five matches in 1992 when the group stage consisted of all nine sides playing each other once. It would have been four had rain not intervened against England when Pakistan were dismissed for 74 and England were 28 for 1 in reply. Thus reprieved they won their final three round robin games and went on to win the tournament - beating England in the final. That was peaking properly.

SILLY POINT: It might be wise to avoid mentioning the podgy (though, of course, resplendent) Inzamam's weight. He was banned for two matches in 1997 for charging into a stand with a bat to confront a heckler who had called him a potato.

RECORD: 1975 1st round; 1979 semi-final; 1983 semi-final; 1987 semi-final; 1992 winners; 1996 quarter-final.

SQUAD: Wasim Akram (capt), Saeed Anwar, Shahid Afridi, Wajahatullah Wasti, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Ijaz Ahmed, Salim Malik, Yousuf Youhana, Moin Khan, Saqlain Mushtaq, Mushtaq Ahmed, Shoaib Akhtar, Waqar Younis, Azhar Mahmood, Abdul Razzaq.

ODDS: 7-2.