In defence of Misbah: throwing the baby out of...

[burger_uno]

i posted this another thread but would be interesting to get feedback:

not that this helps in anyway given the current predicament but i would have misbah as a coach any day over shastari!

in addition, there is great deal of romanticisation of the past. the great pakistan team of the nineties lost around 15 straight odis to s.a. in the same period, pak team was schooled by zimbabwe at home and lost two home series vs sri lanka. in one of these series, waqar younis dropped a sitter when sri lanka was eight down and the tail then wagged to win the match and the series. and speaking of dropped catches and fielding mishaps, here are painful ones from top of my head:

1. saqlain missing a simple runout chance against w.i. in a run chase when w.i. was in the tail which then wagged and cost pakistan the first series win. umpiring further screwed pakistan. p

2. razzak dropping tendulkar in 2003 w.c.

3. yk dropping grant eliot in champions trophy in south africa

4. drop of shane watson by (rahat?) in the 2015 wc.

5. kamran akmal's kurtooth in sydney. his drop off ross taylor in india w.c. the fact that akmal represented pak as long as he did is a good indication of how poorly pak cricket has been run for most of its existence.

all teams drop catches but very few teams do it as frequently as pakistan does especially of key opposition players. pakistan team of the nineties was no better in this regard. the era is remembered so fondly because of the phaintee inflicted on a very decent indian team and a very poor english team which included likes of ronni irani and mark ealham. against australia, pak lost a test series at home in 1998 along with two home odi series in 1994 and 1998. the 1998 odi series was simply uncompetitive with australia hammering pak 3-0. for those who saw the series live, difference between fielding and fitness standards between the two teams was simply embarrassing from perspective of pak supporters. the other reason for pak underperformance was team infighting due to egos of players who were highly talented. thankfully this is one problem which pak team seems to have overcome for which misbah derserves credit.

i have been a fan of misbah for the role he played in digging out pak cricket from its lowest point in the aftermath of 2010 scandal. misbah had been kept out of pak cricket purely for politics. the fact that he harboured no ill-will and turned pakistan to a fairly strong unit is a credit to him. from the period when pak chased 300 in two sessions against s.l. to england tour of 2016 was a respectable period for pak cricket. but things started to go south from the last tour of n.z when yk was beyond sell-by date and misbah was also reaching the end of his tenure. that was time to develop bench strength and involve players like fawad alam and sami aslam - players who possessed unspectacular playing styles but solid temperament. i believe this mistake is haunting misbah himself in his coaching career.

i also believe it was a mistake to hand sarfaraz captaincy of three format which put too much burden on him and impacted his batting which was a key reason for pak success in that period. captaining pak while keeping wickets and contributing with the bat in 3 formats would be a tall task for anybody and its not surprising to see his contribution declined with the bat. azhar ali was a better choice for test captain in my opinion and to his credit azhar has never made a fuss when he was made to participate in the game of musical chair captaincy. his behaviour looks much better than that of yk in this respect.

pak supporters also have to keep in mind that in addition to poor fielding pak is also losing due to absence of babar azam who incidently had a horrible series against sl in uae when pak lost two matches while chasing low scores. yet thankfully pak stood by babar. other players of potential should be treated no differently.

i dont like the way misbah was appointed coach but given his history, i am willing to give him benefit of doubt. hopefully new selector will provide wise council. ultimately this is a result driven business and things have to turn around. but misbah deserves some leeway to see if he can deliver.

 

[ShoaibM]

Yes. Lets keep the baby in the bath as long as possible. Wait...

Ok so the analogy doesnt work but I want Misbah to stay on as coach! Pakistani fans way too jazbati. We had a hard time in NewZealand with the best of teams, this bunch of jokers was going to struggle of course. Lets keep the few positives we have and build on them, we can do it.

 

[Colorblind Genius]

i posted this another thread but would be interesting to get feedback:

not that this helps in anyway given the current predicament but i would have misbah as a coach any day over shastari!

in addition, there is great deal of romanticisation of the past. the great pakistan team of the nineties lost around 15 straight odis to s.a. in the same period, pak team was schooled by zimbabwe at home and lost two home series vs sri lanka. in one of these series, waqar younis dropped a sitter when sri lanka was eight down and the tail then wagged to win the match and the series. and speaking of dropped catches and fielding mishaps, here are painful ones from top of my head:

1. saqlain missing a simple runout chance against w.i. in a run chase when w.i. was in the tail which then wagged and cost pakistan the first series win. umpiring further screwed pakistan. p

2. razzak dropping tendulkar in 2003 w.c.

3. yk dropping grant eliot in champions trophy in south africa

4. drop of shane watson by (rahat?) in the 2015 wc.

5. kamran akmal's kurtooth in sydney. his drop off ross taylor in india w.c. the fact that akmal represented pak as long as he did is a good indication of how poorly pak cricket has been run for most of its existence.

all teams drop catches but very few teams do it as frequently as pakistan does especially of key opposition players. pakistan team of the nineties was no better in this regard. the era is remembered so fondly because of the phaintee inflicted on a very decent indian team and a very poor english team which included likes of ronni irani and mark ealham. against australia, pak lost a test series at home in 1998 along with two home odi series in 1994 and 1998. the 1998 odi series was simply uncompetitive with australia hammering pak 3-0. for those who saw the series live, difference between fielding and fitness standards between the two teams was simply embarrassing from perspective of pak supporters. the other reason for pak underperformance was team infighting due to egos of players who were highly talented. thankfully this is one problem which pak team seems to have overcome for which misbah derserves credit.

i have been a fan of misbah for the role he played in digging out pak cricket from its lowest point in the aftermath of 2010 scandal. misbah had been kept out of pak cricket purely for politics. the fact that he harboured no ill-will and turned pakistan to a fairly strong unit is a credit to him. from the period when pak chased 300 in two sessions against s.l. to england tour of 2016 was a respectable period for pak cricket. but things started to go south from the last tour of n.z when yk was beyond sell-by date and misbah was also reaching the end of his tenure. that was time to develop bench strength and involve players like fawad alam and sami aslam - players who possessed unspectacular playing styles but solid temperament. i believe this mistake is haunting misbah himself in his coaching career.

i also believe it was a mistake to hand sarfaraz captaincy of three format which put too much burden on him and impacted his batting which was a key reason for pak success in that period. captaining pak while keeping wickets and contributing with the bat in 3 formats would be a tall task for anybody and its not surprising to see his contribution declined with the bat. azhar ali was a better choice for test captain in my opinion and to his credit azhar has never made a fuss when he was made to participate in the game of musical chair captaincy. his behaviour looks much better than that of yk in this respect.

pak supporters also have to keep in mind that in addition to poor fielding pak is also losing due to absence of babar azam who incidently had a horrible series against sl in uae when pak lost two matches while chasing low scores. yet thankfully pak stood by babar. other players of potential should be treated no differently.

i dont like the way misbah was appointed coach but given his history, i am willing to give him benefit of doubt. hopefully new selector will provide wise council. ultimately this is a result driven business and things have to turn around. but misbah deserves some leeway to see if he can deliver.

How conveniently did you forget that Misbah came onboard by extending a promise to fix it all if a heavy salary was guaranteed even if he fails.

 

[burger_uno]

another embarrassing loss pak suffered in the 90s was against s.a. at home when a line-up of ATG pak cricketers failed to chase a small target. it is amzing to think that a team that contained so may stars performed so badly at home. also indicates to me at least how much standard of cricket has declined from that period. i hold icc partly responsible for ruining the balance between bat and ball by not forcing boards to produce more sporting pitches.

 

[Colorblind Genius]

another embarrassing loss pak suffered in the 90s was against s.a. at home when a line-up of ATG pak cricketers failed to chase a small target. it is amzing to think that a team that contained so may stars performed so badly at home. also indicates to me at least how much standard of cricket has declined from that period. i hold icc partly responsible for ruining the balance between bat and ball by not forcing boards to produce more sporting pitches.

excuse me?
It's the same pitch for BOTH teams. The better team wins regardless of the pitch. Whether it's this game or any other game, the better team prevails.

What are you thinking? Kane Williamson is batted on a different pitch than, where all Pak team batted?

 

[burger_uno]

kane williams has batted well but dont forgot the four dropped catches (by my count) plus an lbw review not taken. not sure that would change outcome of the series but results would likely been much closer. pakistan had nz in precarious positions by getting openers out cheaply and wicket of williamson would have more pressure on nz batting besides providing uplift to pak attack.

my larger point about about playing conditions was on overall standard of cricket twenty years ago and now. back then, we saw much better bowling pitches some of them very hostile to the batsmen such as waca and durban. in addition you had reverse swing in sub-continent and much more conventional swing even in england. that era also produced some of the finest spin bowlers. this resulted in very competitive test match cricket given conditions produced better quality of batsman. i can recall very competitive series where away side competed very well as batsmen were used to playing in different conditions. only austrailian side consistently won at home while it was common for other big teams to lose at home ex s.a lost to ausssies at home, india to pak and australia, sl to w.t]i. at home and even w.i managed to defeat the aussies. these days home team enjoys a big advantage which does not make for compelling cricket

 

[burger_uno]

i also forgot the most shameful pak loss at home - the defeat to england in 2000 series where an england side containing ian salbsury defeated pak side filled with "talent" in karachi of all places. until that point, pak had never lost a match in karachi and it was shameful to lose that record to england of all countries.

believe me when i say this but that test and series loss was much more painful than a loss to good nz away - a series where pak could have been competitive if not for fielding.

 

[Savak]

i also forgot the most shameful pak loss at home - the defeat to england in 2000 series where an england side containing ian salbsury defeated pak side filled with "talent" in karachi of all places. until that point, pak had never lost a match in karachi and it was shameful to lose that record to england of all countries.

believe me when i say this but that test and series loss was much more painful than a loss to good nz away - a series where pak could have been competitive if not for fielding.

This is not true. English Cricket started to change in the right direction under Nasser Hussain's leadership and he encouraged the team to be more fearless, positive and aggressive with the opposition. It was his leadership which paved the way for England to transition from the likes of Peter Martin, Dominic Cork, Ian Salsbury, Alan Mullaly, Angus Fraser to the likes of Gough, Caddick, Harmison, Flintoff, Jones, Hoggard and later Anderson, Broad e.t.c.

 

[Savak]

Pakistan lost the Eng home series in 2000 because England successfully managed to neutralize our spinners in Saqlain and Mushtaq Ahmed, Kaneria and co. They had done a lot of homework preperation for that tour and were prepared for spin, reverse swing whereas Pakistan was complacent that the same methods of the 90's would give them success but they were not prepared for a professional hungry England Side who wanted the victory much more than Pakistan, Hussain and Thorpe agreed to play in bad light to chase down the target in the final test match

 

[Dr_Bassim]

Its been a dross year by Pakistani standards even.

When the year has been a disaster, you need a "scapegoat" to find why the year didn't go well as the fans expected.

The flavor of the month is "Misbah needs to go" and "Naseem Shah is the worst bowler ever".

When they are both gone from the setup, another villain will come when we face another tough year.

That keeps the coping bearable.

Nothing personal about it.

 

[Bigboii]

[MENTION=140509]burger_uno[/MENTION] good job man!

You did something out of the mainstream thinking that's prevelant rn

But I don't agree that man needs to go

Not because he isn't making our team world class but he is making an already bad team worse

 

[Zaz]

Pakistan lost the Eng home series in 2000 because England successfully managed to neutralize our spinners in Saqlain and Mushtaq Ahmed, Kaneria and co. They had done a lot of homework preperation for that tour and were prepared for spin, reverse swing whereas Pakistan was complacent that the same methods of the 90's would give them success but they were not prepared for a professional hungry England Side who wanted the victory much more than Pakistan, Hussain and Thorpe agreed to play in bad light to chase down the target in the final test match

Pakistan lost that series because they thought england were a poor team against spin and thus foolishly banked on a spin heavy attack would win them the series

Pakistan isnt india and a balanced attack always helped pakistan win games not spin alone.They neutralised their own pacers on dead tracks also the likes of waqar n wasim were on their last legs anyway and england went home laughing

 

[burger_uno]

the side that toured pak in 2000 was certainly stronger than the one pak faced in the 90's. yet man-to-man, pak team had more talent than england which also contained hick despite his horror series against pak at home. looking at pak spin option, no one would put salsbury and giles ahead of saqlain and kaneria as well as afridi. in fact i would argue the pak bowling might be stronger than the one the beat india in the same venue in 2006. i would argue that the indian team of 2006 was stronger than the english team of 2000 while pak team of 2006 was weaker than the team that defeated india in 2006.

 

[burger_uno]

pak has a long track record of preparing dead pitches which favoured pak batsmen over pace attack. this is why imran stopped playing in pak for most of 80's. similar conditions were used in the landmark 89 series against india at home when india managed 3 draws despite having a team which was inferior to that of pak. conditions played a big part in that series although some players like manjrekar stepped up bigtime.

 

[waleed88]

I'm tired of the concept that Misbah is the savior of everything. There is a clear redundancy that is present in his style of captaincy and coaching. Which wasn't even acceptable in his era, but it brought him results in the UAE, series victory in NZ in 2010, West Indies in 2017 and a series tied vs England 2-2 in 2016. However his ODI stats were shoddy, and the brand of cricket that he played in 2015 is now visible again in the LOI format. With consistent failures and most shockingly a defeat against Zimbabwe at home. This series is just confirming the doubts that he is not a savior of anything and cricket needs to be played at a much quicker rate than he wants the team to. Not even test cricket is what it used to be.

 

[ShoaibM]

I'm tired of the concept that Misbah is the savior of everything. There is a clear redundancy that is present in his style of captaincy and coaching. Which wasn't even acceptable in his era, but it brought him results in the UAE, series victory in NZ in 2010, West Indies in 2017 and a series tied vs England 2-2 in 2016. However his ODI stats were shoddy, and the brand of cricket that he played in 2015 is now visible again in the LOI format. With consistent failures and most shockingly a defeat against Zimbabwe at home. This series is just confirming the doubts that he is not a savior of anything and cricket needs to be played at a much quicker rate than he wants the team to. Not even test cricket is what it used to be.

Test cricket is still what it used to be. Thats in large part the point. And even in your ranty post youve admitted his "brand" of cricket brought results in test match cricket and not so much in LOI. That makes sense. Need to distinguish between the two. At least in my opinion, which i fully realize is not that popular at the moment. This was a tough series for all of us.

 

[waleed88]

Test cricket is still what it used to be. Thats in large part the point. And even in your ranty post youve admitted his "brand" of cricket brought results in test match cricket and not so much in LOI. That makes sense. Need to distinguish between the two. At least in my opinion, which i fully realize is not that popular at the moment. This was a tough series for all of us.

I used to be a big Misbah fan back in the day. However I also don't need to mention that it was painfully visible by our defeats under the same leader how far behind we are in terms of modern cricket when Australia and NZ both blew us apart in 2017, and 2016 respectively (Granted Mickey was the coach at that time). And now as a coach, we have seen similar results. I'm not saying the coach was responsible for everything, but the test results are pretty similar for him and Mickey as coaches, and a visible imprint of Misbah's regression in LOIs. Misbah has left the Pakistani team poorer than it was it's clear as night and day.

 

[Abdullah Rabbani]

In Pakistan Post 95
1998 SA 1-0 / 1999 SL 2-1 / 2000 Eng 1-0 / 2004 Ind 2-1 / 2007 SA 1-0

In UAE
2016 SL 2-0 / 2018 NZ 2-1

Pakistan is also poor in home

 

[aukhan]

How can anyone defend Misbah? Misbah is more cancerous to our cricket then fixing.

 

[gazza619]

I think you are missing a very important point here. Yes the team of the 90s had its low but the world feared team Pakistan which consisted of super fast tall bowlers, classy spinners, and dashing batsmen. Hey even Basit Ali which was failure of that era was a treat to watch. Please do not get into the trap by underrating our team of the past.

The biggest blunder our team management is making today is by sticking with players who are failures even in domestic cricket. I want Misbah, Waqar and Younus fired!

 

[szrana007]

I think you are missing a very important point here. Yes the team of the 90s had its low but the world feared team Pakistan which consisted of super fast tall bowlers, classy spinners, and dashing batsmen. Hey even Basit Ali which was failure of that era was a treat to watch. Please do not get into the trap by underrating our team of the past.

The biggest blunder our team management is making today is by sticking with players who are failures even in domestic cricket. I want Misbah, Waqar and Younus fired!

Yes, he has mentioned the home series Pakistan lost to Australia, but hasn't mentioned that Pakistan also thrashed a strong Australian team in their backyard in the 1996-97 world series, in which West Indies was the third team. Current team cannot even thrash Australian club sides in Australia.

 

[JibranAnsari]

The questions are 'has pakistan regressed under misbahs coaching or advanced '?


' do you see pakistan getting better under misbahs coaching , if yes tell me why? '

 

[Faizhassan]

The questions are 'has pakistan regressed under misbahs coaching or advanced '?


' do you see pakistan getting better under misbahs coaching , if yes tell me why? '

The point remains that Misbah had his work cut out since day one, one can argue that bringing Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal was a mistake, but he was handicapped when Aamir and Wahab chickened out of tour of Australia. Then we had England by the ropes but lost that match. The experience players like Asad, Azhar and Sarfaraz had not really taken there game to next level, and younger guys would need time to settle.

In bowling, with Aamir and Wahab absent, either you could have gone with Imran Khan, Sohail Khan and Rahat Ali, the experienced but mediocre trio, or could have blooded Naseem Shah and Shaheen Shah with ample support from Abbas. Team has been unlucky as well as they had lost a home season. New Zealand had decimated India which was a far better team, so Pakistan had no chance.

 

[UzmanBeast]

I think you are missing a very important point here. Yes the team of the 90s had its low but the world feared team Pakistan which consisted of super fast tall bowlers, classy spinners, and dashing batsmen. Hey even Basit Ali which was failure of that era was a treat to watch. Please do not get into the trap by underrating our team of the past.

The biggest blunder our team management is making today is by sticking with players who are failures even in domestic cricket. I want Misbah, Waqar and Younus fired!

Cut Younus Khan some slack because all 3 of his series have been away from home against top quality teams. Our tail enders have been improving slightly in their batting since he came, but how can you expect a batting coach to fix the below-average likes of Shan Masood, Abid Ali, Haris Sohail, etc.?

Misbah and Waqar need to go, because there is no visible evidence that our bowlers have improved since Waqar's signing.

The mistakes Pakistan made in the 90s were that we made competitive pitches, not pitches that suited our strengths. I don't care how close a test match is, I want the team management to make sure that we win by any means necessary. This is something we need to learn, because I see a lot of Pakistani fans criticizing the 555/3 against Sri Lanka talking about how it wasn't competitive. It's not meant to be competitive, we're supposed to do whatever we can to win, that's what the game of Cricket has become. If ICC wanted games to be competitive, they'd be responsible for curating pitches, but that is not the case.

 

[burger_uno]

no doubt pakistan team of nineties and early 2000's was a joy to watch. imagine having the likes of saeed anwer, inzi, ijaz, salim malik and later moyo in the top order and likes of moin khan, azhar mehmood, razzak and wasim akram in middle. and then throw imran nazir and afridi in the mix. and i wont even mention bowling. and yes this team had some very strong away performances such as drawing an away test series against s.a. and defeating aussies in a couple of odi away series. yet given the talent on hand, this team underachieved significantly when it came up against the best teams of that era namely australia and s.a. those teams matched pakistan when it came to talent and skill but were ahead of pakistan when it came to fitness and athleticism which translated into superior fielding performance and mental strength. more importantly, their cricketing affairs were managed by competent people who did not play favourites or politics.

i can point to two examples from that era which shows why those two sides were far ahead. in 1994, there was triangular series in pak involving s.a. and the aussies. in that series s.a. won a grand total of 0 matches. yet in the 1996 w.c. match in karachi, s.a. easily turned over pak which resulted in pakistan playing india in banglore rather than w.i. in karachi. from that point on, s.a. had the wood over pakistan in odis both home and away until pak beat s.a. in sharjah tournament final after a span of 15 odis or so.

similarly there big changes made to aussie odi team after their team failed to qualify in the 1996 carlton and united series. out went stalwarts like taylor, healy and moody in came likes of gilchrist, lehman and symonds who incidently tore pak apart in 2003 w.c. after akram had blown away aussie top order. as is the case with pak, i remember symonds being given a early lifeline when waqar(?) dropped a sitter.

to me these two examples an indication of how cricket boards should be run. in both cases there was recognition that their teams were behind and changes were made which included the dropping of big names. very rarely have i seen such initiative in pak. with few exceptions, pakistani cricketers are behind peers when comes to fitness and fielding standards. yet no sustained effort has been made on this front.

there is also example of dealing with sacred cows who overstay their welcome. best example here is steve waugh being dropped from 2003 w.c. side - the same steve waugh who single handedly dragged australia over the line in 1999 wc against s.a. in two of the greatest games of cricket i have ever seen. and then we have the example yk and his kurtooths before 2015 w.c. nothing more needs to be said on this.

 

[burger_uno]

i forgot to mention that aussie team that toured pak after defeat at the hands of pak in australia beat pak 3-0 at home. in the first odi in karachi, lehman and bevan ran pakistan ragged in the process of scoring well over 300. this was quite rare in those days especially against a team like pak.

there was also the issue of in-fighting in pak team. from what i have read and heard. there were personality clashes within aussie team but pakistan took this to another level. credit to misbah that this problem does not exist within the current team which is why amir should be made an example off.