Misbah-ul-Haq versus Babar Azam? Who will be remembered as a better captain for Pakistan?

[Major]

Absurd. Absolutely absurd to believe a captain who just wants to use pacers is an ‘aggressive’ captain.

You clearly have no clue about cricket.

you are the one who has no clue about cricket. The fact taht you thought aggressive captaincy was related to how you bat only shows how flawed your concept are about the sport.

I think you learned about aggressive and defensive captaincy just today.

 

[Rana]

you are the one who has no clue about cricket. The fact taht you thought aggressive captaincy was related to how you bat only shows how flawed your concept are about the sport.

I think you learned about aggressive and defensive captaincy just today.

Yeah I learned that aggressive captaincy means a skipper uses mainly pacers.

 

[Rana]

“Babar is an aggressive captain who uses 17 out of 20 overs with Pace….and then bats with a sr of 110 in the powerplay as a T20 opener setting the tone as an aggressive batter”


This is what I mean when I say the fans have also lost the plot just like the cricket team.

 

[mominsaigol]

aggressive and defensive captaincy are on the basis of the field placement strategy and bowling changes you make.

In aggressive captaincy, you tend to go for wickets, while in defensive captaincy you look to increase the balls and runs margin while defending a score. Both ways are a strategy you adopt according to the match conditions and situation.

For example, defending 9 runs in the final over and instead of being defensive by having a long on and long off you place a mid on and mid off to take a wicket instead of defending the runs.

Than how you use your bowlers. Using a spinner in the first over is a defensive move, while keep on using shaheen is an aggressive move. This doesnt mean that its a good or bad decision, but you need too look at the situation. Shaheens first over wickets did us more damage in the long run, and not becuase of Shaheen, but because of Babars habit to use him in every game as the first bowler when Imad could had been used.

@Rana @Major Apologies for not responding earlier I was out and just got back. Anyway,

That is completely untrue, aggressive or defensive captaincy isn't as clear cut as you're making it out to be.

It depends on the situation, if a batter is not attacking you and has a slow SR, it's understandable that you keep as many people inside the inner ring to prevent cheeky singles and possibly a slip, this forces the batter who has a low sr and hasn't settled to play a lofted shot which increases your chances of getting a wicket, Similarly if someone like Travis head is going gung ho you, you're only choice is to focus on the outer ring, si ce it's very unlikely that he'll miss time it, edge it or fail to find gaps. Your best bet is to catch him at long off, long on or the outer ring.

Babar is not an aggressive captain by Amy stretch of the imagination. Against India in 2022, Shaheen bowled out the top 3, Kohli was accumulating, in fact kohli had put himself in a situation where India required 48 of 18 to win.

Everyone on the planet knows that Kohli is not a bamg bamg batsmen, He's an accumulator with a 5th gear and will go bamg bang once he's settled, However Babar didn't do a damn thing once PP ended to keep pressure on, Kohli took easy singled and doubles because Babar assumed that kohli wouldn't be able to chase it down due to increasing RR. His defensive captaincy cost the game. After kohli started attacking, Babar instantly panicked and started going for his pacers and on paper this may seem like aggressive captaincy but in reality panic mode set in which is why Nawaz, a bottler had to bowl the last over.

Similarly against USA he brought every fielder inside the circle when it's clear that USA were going to run 4, they were going to loft overhead and hit a boundary.

None of this screams aggressive captaincy. It screams of a captain who genuinely has no plan, waits for things to happen and if things don't happen, he instantly bowls out pacers because he has no other options.

Similarly he frequently doesn't play abrar due to protection of shadab, he frequently puts chacha at slip despite chacha shelling more catches at slip then hafeez ever could or YK ever could or heck even azam khan ever could.

It's a same formula that fails.

Now as for Misbah, Misbah was a good on field captain, I don't disagree, however his tactics came at a time when England wasn't a bazzball side. Sides usually opted for one or 2 hitmans in their squad like de viĺers and dekock but the focus was always on 270 scores and Players like Hashim Amla, Jonathan Trott, Kane Williamson, Steve Smith were considered star batsmen.

His defensive captaincy obviously wouldn't work in this era where odi has become an extension of t20, and 300 to 320 is considered par, and traditionally all sides employs 5 to 6 hitmans, with only one accumulator like root, Williamson, Kohli, Babar batting at 3.

The eras are totally different, so defensive captaincy in odi and t20 just does not work in this era, Gone are the days where you can win games by focusing less on wickets and more on RR pressure. It can work in t20, but will not work in odi where RR are 7.5 to 9 and batsmen like Travis head consider it a walk in the park.

 

[mominsaigol]

Yeah I learned that aggressive captaincy means a skipper uses mainly pacers.

He doesn't even do that. Cough Nawaz bowling the final over cough.

If Babar was an aggressive captain, What logic did he apply when he bowled Nawaz against SA when one wicket was required?

Nawaz hadn't taken a single wicket throughout multiple matches including that game. Usama mir was the only choice you logically had as he had 2 wickets.

On what metric do you bowl Nawaz who is wixketless and expect him to take the final wicket in order to win the Game?

 

[mominsaigol]

@RyanRyan10 @Major

Let me try to explain my stance.

Defensive captaincy is when you try to restrict scoring and increase RR hence increasing pressure.

Problem is this Misbah style worked in an era where people like Alastair cook, Hashim Amla etc batted.

Amla no doubt was a good batsmen but typically you could focus on bring defensive and increasing RR and Amla would most likely make a mistake or put pressure on the team.

This tactic doesn't work now with odi being an extension of t20 and t20 game changing as a whole. People like Klaseen, Travis head won't fall for this tactic ever, only way to beat them is to be aggressive and take their wickets.

SA's RR was increasing in the final, but then Klaseen happened. Originally Bumrah was set to bowl the final over with spinner completing their quota, but rohit sharma knew that their wasn't any choice, Bumrah had to bowl the 16th and end the game as 26 of 24 would be an easy chase is another spinner came onto bowl.

These filler over increase rr tactics only work on people like Joe Root, Hashim amla, Steve Smith. Good luck trying to ve defensive when English Bazzballers are on strike.

Theirs a reason Misbah could never beat a full strength Australia in whiteball, since Australia during this time period was the only team who employed aggressive modern batting with the likes of Watson, maxwell and Warner playing.

Later England changed the whole landscape .

Misbah's defensive style would get butchered by England black and blue and he'd have never beaten England in 2019 since his approach was always sticking to scoring 180 by 40 overs and aim for 250 to 270 at the back end regardless of the situation. Babar does the same, always claiming 270 as his target.

He wouldn't have pulled a sarfraz who knew the only way to beat England was to keep pushing and pushing and pushing it farther to the best of their capabilities and bowling out of your skins.

 

[shaz619]

When you look at all the captains who had a long run with Pakistan, Babar Azam by far is the worst

 

[usman.sandhu]

Misbah was a poor limited overs captain, but a good test captain.

Babar is a pathetic all-format captain, his extraordinarily slow scoring rate has been quite detrimental for our team.. yet he insists on not changing his style of play at all... He seriously needs to be dropped, sent back to domestic cricket and given a clear mandate to up the tempo or risk never playing international cricket again..

Babar is a pathetic all-format captain, Misbah was a poor white ball captain, but a decent red ball captain..

 

[BouncerGuy]

Babar will not be remembered for his captaincy ina good way but yeah, people will remember him as a captain who got a longer run but still failed to win 5-6 ICC events where he failed as a batter himself as well.

 

[RyanRyan10]

He doesn't even do that. Cough Nawaz bowling the final over cough.

If Babar was an aggressive captain, What logic did he apply when he bowled Nawaz against SA when one wicket was required?

Nawaz hadn't taken a single wicket throughout multiple matches including that game. Usama mir was the only choice you logically had as he had 2 wickets.

On what metric do you bowl Nawaz who is wixketless and expect him to take the final wicket in order to win the Game?

Just watch the Pakistan vs Afghanistan match from the 2023 WC to understand how dumb Babar is.

 

[Pakpak]

Tbf, Misbah got lucky in tests.

It's not like he did anything different then his usual dosti yaari gang.

It's just Ahmed shehzad, Azhar Ali and Asad shafiq who he use to forward for Test and odi happened to click in test and YK was already established in test and was undroppable long before Misbah came in.

Credit to misbah for keeping his own form up.

His achievements are overrated in test due to lucking out with his dosti uaari crew since whoever he selected in test like yasir Shah clicked in test but crashed in odi as well as the fact that 2010 was the era where apot fixing happened so getting test no 1 rank was an achievement in die hard pakistan fans eyes.

If Misbah was truly a goat, he wouldn't have driven the test team, Odi team and t20 team to a collapse as soon as he vanished from the circuit and he would have massively upgraded the test squad as coach and chief selector.

Look at Ricky pointing, years after he retired his protege micheal clarke created another ATG aussie side that made Australia God damn unbeatable in the 2014-2015 time period.

Misbah also had a chucker at his disposal who won countless tests on his own. While our best spinner in Test is who? (admittedly due to Babar's own nepotism at including his friends)

You give Ajmal, even Rehman, Hafeez who spins we'd win tests. Its that babar insists on including his friends who are useless and neglects any prospective spinner.