The thousands that thronged Karachi’s National Stadium returned home heartbroken as New Zealand inflicted a crushing blow on the hosts in the Champions Trophy opener. It was not so about the margin of defeat (60 runs when hunting 320) as it was about the manner of the surrender. The lingering feeling would be that they lost not because they were the inferior side, but because New Zealand exuded a streak of clarity and purpose, as they always do, that the hosts couldn’t fathom. There was a bewildering naivety about the defeat, in their inability to seize the moments and deliver the knockout blows, in their shuddering strategies, in their lack of exigency plans, or in their sheer stage fright. The enormity of the occasion, big-ticket cricket returning to the country after nearly three decades, swamped them. The disconsolate fans could reflect on individual brilliance, the splendour of Khushdil Shah’s shot-making, Salman Agha’s audaciousness, the life-affirming serenity of Babar Azam., the bark and bite of Naseem Shah, the magic of Abrar Ahmed’s finger-flickers. But Pakistan had …