Is Misbah's 'grind it out, attritional cricket' captaincy style not suited to non-Asian conditions?

[Slog]

The defensive captaincy on Day 4 set us back a long way behind this match

In Asia you can just wait it out a long time till Day 4 before the pitch breaks and the game opens up big time. So you can just grind it out till day 3 and not show any initiative

Pakistan has clearly been trying to replicate that this series.

However the conditions just don't allow that to happen here.

Another thing is that not having two spinners makes it impossible to follow that plan with success because you just cannot have bowlers for long spells

(This is nothing against Misbah the player and leader Ofcourse because the style of
Cricket we play also has a lot
Of team managements input but it's a shame we are down 2-1)

Discuss.

 

[Chief Destroyer]

No, it's never going to work, especially with four bowlers.

His captaincy has been pathetic past two games, not that it was anything special in the 1st but our bowlers bailed us out.

 

[Slog]

No, it's never going to work, especially with four bowlers.

His captaincy has been pathetic past two games.

As much as I hate to say it we need all rounders in this lineup

Make Azhar open, bring in Babar Azam for YK maybe and play an Allrounder at #7

 

[Chief Destroyer]

As much as I hate to say it we need all rounders in this lineup

Make Azhar open, bring in Babar Azam for YK maybe and play an Allrounder at #7

What's ridiculous is not that he didn't opt to go with an allrounder in the main lineup but didn't even have them in the squad. Instead brought his friends Iftikhar and Zulfi for a free tour.

Yamin and Nawaz should've been in the squad.

 

[leg-side-flick]

Such a strategy can't be opted on non spinning tracks by teams who have a weak batting line up

 

[Slog]

What's ridiculous is not that he didn't opt to go with an allrounder in the main lineup but didn't even have them in the squad. Instead brought his friends Iftikhar and Zulfi for a free tour.

Yamin and Nawaz should've been in the squad.

True.

Zulfiqar Babar is clearly his call. And the guy is not even any good

 

[Adijazz1706]

There has been a lot of personal picks by Misbah throughout his captaincy both in Tests and LOIs. Shafiq in ODIs especially.

 

[Rana]

Game was lost in the first session of Day 3. Pakistan succumbed to an inspired England

 

[Ruri]

That is silly, it's an acceptable tactic, see Cook. But Misbah is the only one with the fortitude to do it consistently.

 

[muqarrab]

It should have worked fine had there been a 5th bowler, but then Misbah was the captain and selection was done with his input so he should have angled for a 5th bowler. But then given the frailties of our batting, would he really want to go for 5 bastmen and an all rounder with the same terrible tail. One can argue that Misbah should have gone for the kill after hale's wicket yesterday, but things were in control until root was dropped. All sports is about control, and misbah understands it and has his own way for controlling the game. It works when we win, and when we don't then fair play to the opposition.

 

[AlphaFighter]

It is clear Misbah hasn't gotten out of the UAE mindset. He can be partially blamed and not, its not his fault the team is mostly forced to play in the UAE and Subcontinent but for someone who has been our captain for 6 long years, you certainly expected better.

 

[Slog]

poor captaincy throughout the game

cant deny but the 2 tests we won in england were in london which arent your typical english conditions

 

[Buffet]

Grinding out will work in certain conditions and it won't work in other conditions.

 

[Yossarian]

A Captain's style of play is basically a factor only when the team is fielding. In this match, the bowling/fielding, thus far, have been fine. It's the batting that's been the problem. A captain can't do anything when batsmen play silly shots and throw away their wickets.

 

[Suleiman]

Yeah it's one dimensional and this was always gonna happen eventually. England didn't prepare pitches like these because maybe they were afraid of our bowlers, wrongly. Had they prepped pitches like these, it may have been a different scoreline.

But like I said, had we won the toss here and bowled first it may have been a different story with us chasing 120-150. These pitches are a bit of a lottery.

But Misbah, Younis, Asad, Azhar, all seemed too limited, Asad is probably the most versatile out of the 4 but also the most mentally fragile as well. Sarfraz simply doesn't have the technique for these types of wickets.

You can't dump out the whole team I guess... it is what it is. Best course of action is to think long term and improve the wickets at home from the pathetic wet, damp, low bounce hell on earth we have instead where a batsman from the start only knows and wants to survive to just dead bat the ball time after time instead of imposing himself.

You know what makes the above obvious though? The way we can't even put the bad balls away whereas the NZ batsmen even Wagner and de Granthomme were ruthless against anything short and wide or too full. Shows the one dimensional approach our batsmen have had all their lives.

 

[Hamza_]

What would've an all-rounder done here? Some posters are so immature. When your batting goes down like this what would an all-rounder bring in? Also we don't have a good all-rounder either