What next for Pakistan cricketers? Will the survivors even get to go home?

Pakistan arrive at the third and final Test against England in a strange little corner of cricketing absurdity. The series is only two matches old, yet the cast has already begun to disappear: seven players sent home, a coach out of a job, a bowling coach replaced and a selector gone.

It is as if someone has mistaken a Test series for a theatre production and, between acts, decided to rewrite the cast list. The players who remain now prepare for the final Test with five uncapped men among them, while everyone else waits to discover what the next act might bring after September 9.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

Another defeat could simply continue the process. More players out, more coaches in, perhaps another selection committee summoned to explain why the previous selection committee existed in the first place.

But a win could be even more consequential. The PCB might decide the wholesale changes have worked so brilliantly that they should become a permanent operating model.

A whitewash by England could take things into more experimental territory. The remaining Pakistan players might be advised not to return home at all, leaving them wandering around Birmingham airport in the manner of Tom Hanks in The Terminal, only with considerably less certainty about their next flight and considerably more uncertainty about their next selection.

Then might come the emergency call to the past.

Wasim Akram and Shoaib Akhtar could be asked to reverse their retirements to push the average bowling speed close to 140km/h. The batting department could receive a similar intervention. Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan might be summoned back to demonstrate a skill that currently feels almost archaeological: defending a fast bowler for more than five minutes.

As it wobbles, Pakistan cricket keeps pressing the reset button, apparently unaware that eventually the button itself will need replacing.