Who knows how many times Wasim Akram has privately contemplated retirement during his latest stint as Pakistan's captain? Hundreds, probably. The confusion surrounding Pakistan's betting and match-fixing crisis has cast itself far and wide, beleaguering sinners and saints alike.

At Old Trafford yesterday, a day before Pakistan's semi-final against New Zealand, Wasim fleetingly imagined a glorious way to retire: a return home with the World Cup, an adulatory welcome in Pakistan, and a reluctant admission that, hero or not, it was time to say farewell.

"Maybe if we win the final it will be a good time for me to bow out," he said. At 33, and still bowling his snaking left-arm quicks with immense skill and fervour, there are no pressing professional reasons to step down, but retiring at the top has obvious attractions.

The official Pakistan government inquiry into cricket match-rigging will announce its findings after the World Cup and no one, innocent or guilty, would particularly want to be caught in the fallout.

Wasim, in street clothes, could pass easily these days for an Asian intellectual, but he has no wish to overplay his natural captaincy skills. It is a role he has fulfilled with misgivings several times, resigning then returning, like an actor fatally attracted to a great role he yearns for but equally cannot really abide.

"No one is a born leader," he insisted. "I have made millions of mistakes, but I have learned from them." This is not the time for another lesson. Pakistan have been so inconsistent in this tournament - their progress to the semi-final included three successive defeats - that the need to produce two consistent performances to lift the trophy remains a challenge.

Stephen Fleming, the captain of a New Zealand side of more earnest talents, gave a tacit admission yesterday that his side's fate might be largely dependent on their opponents' mercurial mood.

"Pakistan can fluctuate more than any other side," he said. "They can be absolutely brilliant one day and not at their best the next.

"The expectations of their public have been a lot higher than ours. It might come down to who handles the pressure better." Whereas Pakistan's progress to the semi-finals has been studded with memorable incidents - the pace of Shoaib, the powerful batting and run-out malarkey of Inzamam, the combative instincts of Moin Khan - Fleming just talks of New Zealand "playing reasonable cricket and scrapping at important times".

They have cause for pride, but New Zealand's persistent painting of themselves as underdogs can be rather boring. When Steve Rixon, their Australian coach, took over three years ago he conjured up the phrase "the quiet achievers". It is a line they have stuck to.

To reach the final New Zealand have to overcome Pakistan today, and the Kiwis' batting in particular does not convince. Whereas Pakistan have shrewdly, if belatedly, responded to Shahid Afridi's problems against the exaggerated new-ball movement by slipping him down to number six, New Zealand have stayed true to Craig McMillan at number three despite their most destructive batsman hardly making a run.

Pakistan, at their best, will triumph. But then millions of underachievers wake up every morning hoping for a good day.