Ahead of the World Cup, in one white ball cricket format – ODIs – Pakistan have not played well lately; in white ball cricket’s shorter format – T20s – they have been the No 1 team for well over a year now. Somehow the loss of 10 consecutive official ODIs does not feel as bad as it should as the team has hardly played any of the games at full strength. Against Australia in the UAE this March, Pakistan rested seven of their top players as a part of programme to rest and rotate for the World Cup. And when they lost four games in a row this month against the No1-ranked ODI side in the world, England, the team came out with a lot of positives. With the bat Babar Azam has been in sublime form (even in Saturday’s warm-up defeat by Afghanistan he led the way with 112). He is averaging 52.44 this year and had a good Test series in South Africa where he came into his own against Steyn, Rabada and Olivier in testing conditions. He and Imam ul-Haq will play their natural game in the top order while Fakhar Zaman, the opener, will try and…