Never mind the swine flue epidemic that is being talked about in many parts of the world, whats more dangerous and high profile in Pakistan at the moment is the Pack of Cards syndrome.

What you may ask is the Pack of cards syndrome? - basically its where a cricket team that is batting with such ease and comfort suddenly and without any sort of prior warning somehow manages to lose 10 wickets for 81 runs, then 10 wickets for 86 runs and then just for added measure loses 9 wickets for 35 runs. Blink when you are watching Pakistan bat and you will have mised a wicket, go and make a cup of tea in the kitchen and you will have missed at least a couple of wickets. Go and make your lunch and you will have missed half the team's batting. Go and drop the kids of at school and you will have missed all of the wickets. I tell you its a very dangerous epidemic and one that is very painful to those watching and supporting Pakistan.

Conditions have not been great for batting in Sri Lanka, but make no mistake Galle and Colombo were not a green unprepared Headingley strip in early May or a Chennai dustbowl on day 5. The bottom line is there can be absolutely no valid excuse for such tumultuous collapses against with all due respect a hard working and methodical bowling attack. This was no great West Indies pace battery, this was no Aussie lineup with McGrath, Lee, Gillespie and Warne snarling away at the batting lineup and remember Sri Lanka's legendary spinner Muralitharan was nowhere to be seen - I simply cringe to think what may have happened if Murali had been turning his arm over at Galle and Colombo.

Pakistani batting lineups in recent years have leant heavily on the likes of Inzamam, Yousuf and Younis Khan and once again in Sri Lanka we have seen that if the 2 big guns currently in the lineup Yousuf and Younis both dont score big, then the rest of the batting is as useful as a fireguard made from chocolate. This tour has been the perfect opportunity for the likes of Salman Butt, Misbah ul Haq and Shoaib Malik to step out of the shadows of Yousuf and Younis and prove to the doubters that they have the pedigree, the technique and above all the mental toughness to build long innings and to lead their team to victory or indeed save a match when required - sadly all 3 of the aforementioned have flattered to deceive.

Pakistan's pack of card syndrome in my opinion wasnt something that was crafted on the 22 yard strips in Colombo and Galle, rather it is the result of a shoddy and below standard domestic setup where players are usually selected on who they know, rather than on merit, a domestic circuit where intensity is as rare as a decent crowd watching the game, a domestic circuit where talented youngsters at Under 19 and other junior levels are lost in the system and a domestic circuit wherein most of the matches are treated and played as exhibition matches. This domestic system is producing a generation of players that look great at Twenty/20 cricket, can play a few nice shots, can bowl a few overs at full throttle, but simply dont have the mental strength to bat for long periods and sessions and dont have the guile and craft to bowl long spells.

Pakistan is producing a generation of Twenty/20 cricketers whose sole aim is to play in the IPL and the priority it would seem for these cricketers is to be a master of the crash bang wallop cricket of 20 overs, rather than the real deal which is test cricket. When a wicket falls of either Younis Khan or Mohammad Yousuf in a test match, the reverberations can be witnessed in the eyes of all their colleagues, which is simply not acceptable.

The selectors and those in authority at the PCB need to look very closely at why the majority of the current crop of cricketers seem to be very proficient at the twenty over format and like ducks out of water in the 5 day version. I would urge them to look at the setup of domestic cricket, look at why so many players are falling out of their radars and why the majority of our cricketers are so mentally weak and reliant upon a few stalwarts.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel for Pakistani cricket fans? - not for the short term I would dare to say. More pain ahead and more outbreaks of pack of cards syndrome I'm afraid.