Recalling veterans Hafeez and Malik were among the seven changes Mibah-led selection panel made. © Getty

Pakistan's series win over Bangladesh wasn't just a relief to their T20I ranking but also to Misbah-ul-Haq's leap of faith. The Pakistan head coach cum chief selector had invested in a renewed squad leading up to the series, calling his team's performance "unacceptable" as the top T20I team.

Misbah, in preparation for the Bangladesh series, went as far as dropping as many as seven players and recalling veterans Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez in addition to Shaheen Afridi. And now that Pakistan have won the series 2-0, his faith in a squad that sports a mix of the young and the old seems to have reaped rich dividends.

"After two series, we have realised that we cannot go all out with youngsters and we need experience," Misbah said after the Lahore washout. "So, obviously Babar did back them [Malik and Hafeez] and, as expected, their experience did work for us.T he doors are never shut. If any player who is fit, performing and required, he should definitely be considered. If their form is helping your team, then I don't see any problem in picking them."

"Whenever both seniors weren't there in the team, questions were asked of me," Misbah added ."I never really talked about ending someone's career or why we are not considering them. But, sometimes you do look around and check your resources and do experiment to see where you stand."

Pakistan, who had lost eight out of their last nine T20Is leading up to this series, needed this series win for some "breathing space", Misbah argued. The hosts had recently suffered a 3-0 series defeat against a second-string Sri Lanka side before flying to Australia and losing 2-0.

"The most important thing for us was to win," Misbah said. "This victory was important for us to get breathing space and now you obviously have to see where you are lacking and which area you can strengthen yourself. Otherwise being under pressure, you are always running after many things and sometimes it's really hard to catch up. It's good for me, for the team, for all youngsters that we are relaxed and got a little confidence-booster. Now we can focus better going forward.

"Because when you lose back-to-back series and even before we had a poor run losing T20 games, so it was really important for our confidence to win. Obviously, credit should be given to our bowling, the way our young bowlers never gave Bangladesh a chance to sneak in to get into a position to pose any threat."