Wasim Khan was very clear a year ago that:
1. Misbah was not accused of unethical behaviour for being an active member of the committee which sacked Mickey Arthur, then immediately applying for his job.
2. Misbah was now going to have Absolute Power as the combined Head Coach AND Chief Selector.
3. Misbah was going to be held twice as accountable for the performance of the national team, given that he controlled both Levers of Power.
The message was clear: Misbah has twice as much power as anyone before him but this comes with twice as much responsibility and twice as much accountability. If the team loses or underperforms for any significant period of time, or he makes any significant errors, he is Out Of A Job.
Misbah's supporters welcomed this.
"He is smart and calm"
"He knows domestic cricket better than anyone, and he will select people based upon their domestic statistics".
Misbah's critics disagreed.
"He will dump all the players in their twenties and fill the team with un-established guys in their thirties".
"He will play 3 quicks and a spinner in SENA as if it was Asia, and he will return to trying to use Yasir Shah as a stock bowler in SENA".
"He will dump his all-rounders because he doesn't accept that an all-rounder is the sum of his parts".
The reality is that it has been WORSE than his critics feared. He did dump the guys in their twenties, but he replaced them not just with geriatrics but with kids too.
He took only 5 quick bowlers to Australia: 3 teenagers and 2 guys in their thirties. His two unexpected selections were averaging 65 and 49 with the ball that season.
Across the board he called up new guys in their thirties whose current domestic performances were worse than guys in their twenties whom he ignored (Fawad Alam v Sami Aslam, Kashif Bhatti v Zafar Gohar, Imran Khan v Ehsan Adil, etc etc).
He inherited a team which missed 4th place at the World Cup on Net Run Rate.
He inherited a team which had drawn 2 recent Test tours of England. And he discarded almost all of the players in their twenties and replaced them with men a decade older.
Top international Head Coaches - Langer, Shastri and Silverwood - earn roughly US$1 million per year.
Part of the attraction for the PCB of giving Misbah his dual role was that they could pay him 70% below the going rate for a single role coach, on the basis that he is Pakistani and unqualified, and they are doing him a favour letting him have a job that he is not qualified to have. He was a cheap hire.
But the problem is not just HOW Misbah-ul-Haq has gone about failing, dumping players in their peak years in favour of geriatrics and kids.
The problem is that he is underperforming against his predecessor Mickey Arthur (who himself was hopeless in UAE Tests), and he is underperforming badly.
In Mickey Arthur's last two series for Pakistan in England, the final World Test Championship points tally was:
England 60 Pakistan 60
Under Misbah, the team became a generation older and the points tally was:
England 66 Pakistan 26
The home series against Mickey Arthur's Sri Lanka was not great either, with Misbah's team dropping 40 points:
Pakistan 80 Sri Lanka 20
The tour of Australia was even worse: Misbah would have you believe that he lost two bowlers in their prime (Wahab aged 34 and Amir aged a likely 31). Misbah took just 5 quick bowlers and none in their twenties. His two outrageous call-ups (Musa Khan and Imran Khan) were averaging 65 and 49 in domestic cricket - and took a grand total of 1 wicket for 187 runs.
Australia batted twice. They scored 580 and 589-3 declared.
Misbah's failure could not be more absolute, could not be more total.
He has discarded almost all of his his players who are in their prime years, and filled the team with geriatrics and kids.
But the question is this: he might be cheap, but can the PCB afford to sack him?
He is doing vastly worse than Inzamam as Chief Selector and Mickey Arthur as Head Coach did. But he is cheap, and if they sack him they will have to pay him out.
I suspect that they will retain him as Head Coach on the same salary, and appoint a new Chief Selector on a low wage.
That way they barely go over budget on salaries - Chief Selectors earn virtually nothing because it is a part-time job - and they remove Misbah from the task that he is performing with even more incompetence than his other role.
1. Misbah was not accused of unethical behaviour for being an active member of the committee which sacked Mickey Arthur, then immediately applying for his job.
2. Misbah was now going to have Absolute Power as the combined Head Coach AND Chief Selector.
3. Misbah was going to be held twice as accountable for the performance of the national team, given that he controlled both Levers of Power.
The message was clear: Misbah has twice as much power as anyone before him but this comes with twice as much responsibility and twice as much accountability. If the team loses or underperforms for any significant period of time, or he makes any significant errors, he is Out Of A Job.
Misbah's supporters welcomed this.
"He is smart and calm"
"He knows domestic cricket better than anyone, and he will select people based upon their domestic statistics".
Misbah's critics disagreed.
"He will dump all the players in their twenties and fill the team with un-established guys in their thirties".
"He will play 3 quicks and a spinner in SENA as if it was Asia, and he will return to trying to use Yasir Shah as a stock bowler in SENA".
"He will dump his all-rounders because he doesn't accept that an all-rounder is the sum of his parts".
The reality is that it has been WORSE than his critics feared. He did dump the guys in their twenties, but he replaced them not just with geriatrics but with kids too.
He took only 5 quick bowlers to Australia: 3 teenagers and 2 guys in their thirties. His two unexpected selections were averaging 65 and 49 with the ball that season.
Across the board he called up new guys in their thirties whose current domestic performances were worse than guys in their twenties whom he ignored (Fawad Alam v Sami Aslam, Kashif Bhatti v Zafar Gohar, Imran Khan v Ehsan Adil, etc etc).
He inherited a team which missed 4th place at the World Cup on Net Run Rate.
He inherited a team which had drawn 2 recent Test tours of England. And he discarded almost all of the players in their twenties and replaced them with men a decade older.
Top international Head Coaches - Langer, Shastri and Silverwood - earn roughly US$1 million per year.
Part of the attraction for the PCB of giving Misbah his dual role was that they could pay him 70% below the going rate for a single role coach, on the basis that he is Pakistani and unqualified, and they are doing him a favour letting him have a job that he is not qualified to have. He was a cheap hire.
But the problem is not just HOW Misbah-ul-Haq has gone about failing, dumping players in their peak years in favour of geriatrics and kids.
The problem is that he is underperforming against his predecessor Mickey Arthur (who himself was hopeless in UAE Tests), and he is underperforming badly.
In Mickey Arthur's last two series for Pakistan in England, the final World Test Championship points tally was:
England 60 Pakistan 60
Under Misbah, the team became a generation older and the points tally was:
England 66 Pakistan 26
The home series against Mickey Arthur's Sri Lanka was not great either, with Misbah's team dropping 40 points:
Pakistan 80 Sri Lanka 20
The tour of Australia was even worse: Misbah would have you believe that he lost two bowlers in their prime (Wahab aged 34 and Amir aged a likely 31). Misbah took just 5 quick bowlers and none in their twenties. His two outrageous call-ups (Musa Khan and Imran Khan) were averaging 65 and 49 in domestic cricket - and took a grand total of 1 wicket for 187 runs.
Australia batted twice. They scored 580 and 589-3 declared.
Misbah's failure could not be more absolute, could not be more total.
He has discarded almost all of his his players who are in their prime years, and filled the team with geriatrics and kids.
But the question is this: he might be cheap, but can the PCB afford to sack him?
He is doing vastly worse than Inzamam as Chief Selector and Mickey Arthur as Head Coach did. But he is cheap, and if they sack him they will have to pay him out.
I suspect that they will retain him as Head Coach on the same salary, and appoint a new Chief Selector on a low wage.
That way they barely go over budget on salaries - Chief Selectors earn virtually nothing because it is a part-time job - and they remove Misbah from the task that he is performing with even more incompetence than his other role.
