Whenever the exact nadir was, the challenges faced by Misbah-ul-Haq, Pakistan's present captain, make him the unsung hero of world cricket. Brought back into the team in 2010 after then-captain Salman Butt was jailed along with Amir, the 40-year-old has had to lead a team in exile, root out corruption and confront a chaotic administration, making a bad day for England's Alastair Cook look easy. 

Oborne is a little too ready to absolve Pakistan's cricketers of responsibility for the messes they have found themselves in. Practically every controversy in the book is the fault of a hostile — even racist — British press, and while Oborne may be right that Pakistan have been an underappreciated force in world cricket, their cricketers have not always helped themselves. But Wounded Tiger is a labour of love — trips to every corner of Pakistan, meticulous footnotes, and acknowledgments given to librarians in far-flung institutions like the Lahore Gymkhana — so we can forgive Oborne his rose-tinted spectacles.  

Even at the worst of times, it is difficult to tear yourself away from Pakistan's mercurial team. The country has produced some of the most exciting and innovative players cricket has seen and Wounded Tiger is at its most enjoyable when Oborne is explaining how reverse swing transformed fast bowling and crediting the underrated Abdul Qadir with reinventing spin in the 1980s, turning the sedate into the terrifying. 

Wounded Tiger makes it clear that Ian Botham was being too narrow-minded in his tongue-in-cheek tribute: "Pakistan is the sort of place every man should send his mother-in-law to, for a month, all expenses paid."

For all the challenges Pakistan faces today, there exists an admirable national pride, of which the nation's embattled cricket team is a healthy and unifying expression.