Wanted: Success, for many reasons

Few sides really need to win - or do very well - the World Twenty20 as badly as Pakistan. Few sides will be as rusty as Pakistan. And few sides are as capable of them of pulling off something special, especially in this format.
Pakistan's travails on and off the field need no repeating. Suffice to say, on the field, they have lurched closer and closer to what was once thought to be unthinkable: a team you have no particular opinion about, a team that doesn't set any pulses racing. For Pakistan, that is a fate worse than defeat, or death. So a triumph here - a good run even - would be as significant a boost on the field as winning a battle against militants off it.
It won't be easy given their rustiness - nobody, not even Bangladesh, has played less international cricket since January 2007 than Pakistan. And they were the only country whose players weren't represented at the IPL; instead they warmed up with a conditioning camp and a hastily-arranged domestic Twenty20 tournament. But for Pakistan, Twenty20 is like finding yourself back in the galli you have played cricket in all your life. The angles, the run-stealing, the yorkers, the spin, the-poor-fielding-with-crucial-moments-of-quality, the big-hitting, clarity emerging only from chaos; as in South Africa two years ago, there is a natural familiarity and comfort with the format.