Misbah : "You can't defend this kind of performance. It was a poor and disappointing performance"
Misbah-ul-Haq speaking at a press conference earlier today:
There is no way you can defend a performance like that. It was a poor and disappointing performance. In the first 2 matches we couldn’t handle the conditions with our batting. In the last match our batting was better with Babar and Rizwan batting well and we reached a total that we should have defended. Overall a very disappointing performance from the bowling point of view and especially the fielding which throughout the series has been a problem. Nobody can defend such a performance.
If you look back recently at the home and away series against South Africa we performed well in all departments. We were satisfied that we were on the right track but now we are back to where we started. It’s very disappointing but we have to look ahead to see where we want to go and why we performed like this suddenly after doing such excellent work in the last 5 or 6 series. In the last month we played PSL and after that we have looked off-colour and it’s a worrying sign for me as a Head Coach.
England has the luxury of having a good pool of players. They are lucky as they have a lot of options but we have limitations in certain positions especially in the middle order and we have not been able to fill that position with a settled option and sometimes we have to rush players in, to fill that slot. Obviously if you have choices where players have scored a lot of runs over a long period of time in domestic then you can move towards bringing in those players. This is the problem we have and why we sometimes bring in inexperienced players from the PSL.
I don’t believe in putting all the blame on just the players or just the coaches. You work as a team, and if plans weren’t executed on the field then we are equally to blame as the players. You make plans, you practice and we are all responsible for the execution of those plans. As a team we were below par in terms of our execution of the bowling plans, the lengths, and our field plans. As a team we didn’t execute those plans and when we did execute those bowling plans we were let down by the fielding. If you drop simple catches at crucial stages then you will see the results especially on true pitches and where the ball comes on nicely. If you don’t take wickets then it’s very difficult to stop teams from scoring 7 or 7.5 runs an over. I don’t blame individuals, it’s the fault of all of us. We are all equally responsible for the defeats.
It’s important that all the teams play the same number of matches in the WTC. And it’s important regarding who plays against who and where and I’m sure the ICC and PCB will have looked into this.
The debate regarding favouritism will never end. Whichever XI we pick, there will always be questions as to why the other players didn’t play. We always try to pick the best combination and we always try to give chances based on our bench-strength. There is no favouritism, we always try to pick the best and most balanced team so that we win matches and win series. There is no obligation to play certain players.
Shadab and Faheem are important to the balance of the team as wherever you play, numbers 7 and 8 have to be able to bat as we have seen with Lewis Gregory. Shadab can bat, he can bowl although his bowling hasn’t been at its best recently but it’s important that he regains his form and confidence.
At this moment the form of most of the players isn’t at the level that it should be. Faheem bowled well against South Africa and we see him as a bowler firstly and then we look at his batting as a support. Neither Faheem or Shadab are getting special favours and being picked all the time.
Discipline is important. The coaching staff have a role in this as do the players. If you look at England’s bowlers they beat us through basic disciplines as well as basic disciplines in fielding. We need to concentrate more on such things so that our performances don’t drop. We need to look at our standards and work on our replacements and bench-strength, so that there is no drop in the quality of the team, as England has. We were at full strength and England were completely changed and still we couldn’t compete with them. We need to improve our disciplines and maintain our consistency.
The fielding coach can only try and work with the players. The last few series the fielding was ok, but now suddenly these last few matches have been bad. We need to find the reasons as it’s the same players, same team which did well before, but now suddenly we’ve had problems. The boys were in quarantine for 10 days but I don’t want to make excuses. Something has gone wrong and our momentum has broken and we are finding it difficult to regain that momentum and our standards have slipped. We are looking at what has caused this and what are the reasons for this and it’s important we sort these issues out before the T20I series and then the series in the Caribbean.
It’s wrong to say that everything is going wrong just because we have lost the last few matches. It’s part of the game when your team is developing, you win series and you lose series. But it’s disappointing that our winning streak has ended with such poor performances. We all made mistakes, I accept that we couldn’t execute our plans in bowling and fielding and didn’t take our chances. We should have comfortably won the 3rd ODI but we let it slip. We made mistakes, but it’s wrong to say that everything is going wrong and that nothing has gone right in the last 2 years.
Since Babar has become captain, his performances as a batsman have improved which means that he is handling pressure very well. In terms of captaincy obviously he is new, he’s inexperienced as a captain so he is still learning and he will improve over time. Nobody can be perfect so quickly. Mistakes are made by even the best captains and if you are a young and an inexperienced captain then you will make mistakes and they will be visible. The more experienced you become as a captain, the better you get at it.
We wanted to go in to all of the 3 matches with our best combination. No doubt we didn’t click in the second match but we were confident that this was our best XI. Also the new players had just come off the back of PSL and they’ve not played any 50-over cricket for a while. So after 2 matches the team was in rhythm as they had familiarised themselves with conditions and the opposition. So the players who had been playing had a better idea of conditions, so we felt that this XI had a good chance of winning the 3rd match and that’s why we never made any changes and bring in new players who hadn’t featured in the series at all. Overall the combination was based on the conditions and the pitch that we saw.
The biggest positive was the way we batted in the 3rd match and the form of some of the batsmen. Babar’s career-best ODI innings, Rizwan’s performance, before going into an important T20 series and then to the West Indies, was in my view crucial for us. The last few series all our bowlers did well especially against South Africa. But in this series we were average and below par, we were poor and we need to pick ourselves up. Shaheen, Hassan and Haris have been producing good performances of late and Faheem bowled very well in South Africa. Obviously they’ve not been able to bowl in the last 2 or 3 matches like they have been and how they should have. Hopefully all of these bowlers can make a strong comeback in the next series and improve and help Pakistan win matches once again as they have in the past. This has been an off-colour series, not only for them, but for the whole team in all departments especially our fast-bowling.
England has shown how strong their system is by putting up a very strong second team against us. As far as our middle-order problems are concerned, I want to give players a proper chance and give players at least 1 or 2 full series. Unfortunately the performances have not been there. We support all the players and we give them opportunities but the performances as yet have not come.
Regarding Waqar and I, unfortunately you win 6 series and then you lose 2 or 3 matches and lose 1 series and people forget all the good work we have put in and instead focus on the losses. However, there is no doubt this series has been disappointing, the team performances have been disappointing, the coaches performance has been disappointing. We are a part of the on-field performance, it’s been poor on the field and the coaches performance has been poor, so we need to pick it up.
Misbah-ul-Haq speaking at a press conference earlier today:
There is no way you can defend a performance like that. It was a poor and disappointing performance. In the first 2 matches we couldn’t handle the conditions with our batting. In the last match our batting was better with Babar and Rizwan batting well and we reached a total that we should have defended. Overall a very disappointing performance from the bowling point of view and especially the fielding which throughout the series has been a problem. Nobody can defend such a performance.
If you look back recently at the home and away series against South Africa we performed well in all departments. We were satisfied that we were on the right track but now we are back to where we started. It’s very disappointing but we have to look ahead to see where we want to go and why we performed like this suddenly after doing such excellent work in the last 5 or 6 series. In the last month we played PSL and after that we have looked off-colour and it’s a worrying sign for me as a Head Coach.
England has the luxury of having a good pool of players. They are lucky as they have a lot of options but we have limitations in certain positions especially in the middle order and we have not been able to fill that position with a settled option and sometimes we have to rush players in, to fill that slot. Obviously if you have choices where players have scored a lot of runs over a long period of time in domestic then you can move towards bringing in those players. This is the problem we have and why we sometimes bring in inexperienced players from the PSL.
I don’t believe in putting all the blame on just the players or just the coaches. You work as a team, and if plans weren’t executed on the field then we are equally to blame as the players. You make plans, you practice and we are all responsible for the execution of those plans. As a team we were below par in terms of our execution of the bowling plans, the lengths, and our field plans. As a team we didn’t execute those plans and when we did execute those bowling plans we were let down by the fielding. If you drop simple catches at crucial stages then you will see the results especially on true pitches and where the ball comes on nicely. If you don’t take wickets then it’s very difficult to stop teams from scoring 7 or 7.5 runs an over. I don’t blame individuals, it’s the fault of all of us. We are all equally responsible for the defeats.
It’s important that all the teams play the same number of matches in the WTC. And it’s important regarding who plays against who and where and I’m sure the ICC and PCB will have looked into this.
The debate regarding favouritism will never end. Whichever XI we pick, there will always be questions as to why the other players didn’t play. We always try to pick the best combination and we always try to give chances based on our bench-strength. There is no favouritism, we always try to pick the best and most balanced team so that we win matches and win series. There is no obligation to play certain players.
Shadab and Faheem are important to the balance of the team as wherever you play, numbers 7 and 8 have to be able to bat as we have seen with Lewis Gregory. Shadab can bat, he can bowl although his bowling hasn’t been at its best recently but it’s important that he regains his form and confidence.
At this moment the form of most of the players isn’t at the level that it should be. Faheem bowled well against South Africa and we see him as a bowler firstly and then we look at his batting as a support. Neither Faheem or Shadab are getting special favours and being picked all the time.
Discipline is important. The coaching staff have a role in this as do the players. If you look at England’s bowlers they beat us through basic disciplines as well as basic disciplines in fielding. We need to concentrate more on such things so that our performances don’t drop. We need to look at our standards and work on our replacements and bench-strength, so that there is no drop in the quality of the team, as England has. We were at full strength and England were completely changed and still we couldn’t compete with them. We need to improve our disciplines and maintain our consistency.
The fielding coach can only try and work with the players. The last few series the fielding was ok, but now suddenly these last few matches have been bad. We need to find the reasons as it’s the same players, same team which did well before, but now suddenly we’ve had problems. The boys were in quarantine for 10 days but I don’t want to make excuses. Something has gone wrong and our momentum has broken and we are finding it difficult to regain that momentum and our standards have slipped. We are looking at what has caused this and what are the reasons for this and it’s important we sort these issues out before the T20I series and then the series in the Caribbean.
It’s wrong to say that everything is going wrong just because we have lost the last few matches. It’s part of the game when your team is developing, you win series and you lose series. But it’s disappointing that our winning streak has ended with such poor performances. We all made mistakes, I accept that we couldn’t execute our plans in bowling and fielding and didn’t take our chances. We should have comfortably won the 3rd ODI but we let it slip. We made mistakes, but it’s wrong to say that everything is going wrong and that nothing has gone right in the last 2 years.
Since Babar has become captain, his performances as a batsman have improved which means that he is handling pressure very well. In terms of captaincy obviously he is new, he’s inexperienced as a captain so he is still learning and he will improve over time. Nobody can be perfect so quickly. Mistakes are made by even the best captains and if you are a young and an inexperienced captain then you will make mistakes and they will be visible. The more experienced you become as a captain, the better you get at it.
We wanted to go in to all of the 3 matches with our best combination. No doubt we didn’t click in the second match but we were confident that this was our best XI. Also the new players had just come off the back of PSL and they’ve not played any 50-over cricket for a while. So after 2 matches the team was in rhythm as they had familiarised themselves with conditions and the opposition. So the players who had been playing had a better idea of conditions, so we felt that this XI had a good chance of winning the 3rd match and that’s why we never made any changes and bring in new players who hadn’t featured in the series at all. Overall the combination was based on the conditions and the pitch that we saw.
The biggest positive was the way we batted in the 3rd match and the form of some of the batsmen. Babar’s career-best ODI innings, Rizwan’s performance, before going into an important T20 series and then to the West Indies, was in my view crucial for us. The last few series all our bowlers did well especially against South Africa. But in this series we were average and below par, we were poor and we need to pick ourselves up. Shaheen, Hassan and Haris have been producing good performances of late and Faheem bowled very well in South Africa. Obviously they’ve not been able to bowl in the last 2 or 3 matches like they have been and how they should have. Hopefully all of these bowlers can make a strong comeback in the next series and improve and help Pakistan win matches once again as they have in the past. This has been an off-colour series, not only for them, but for the whole team in all departments especially our fast-bowling.
England has shown how strong their system is by putting up a very strong second team against us. As far as our middle-order problems are concerned, I want to give players a proper chance and give players at least 1 or 2 full series. Unfortunately the performances have not been there. We support all the players and we give them opportunities but the performances as yet have not come.
Regarding Waqar and I, unfortunately you win 6 series and then you lose 2 or 3 matches and lose 1 series and people forget all the good work we have put in and instead focus on the losses. However, there is no doubt this series has been disappointing, the team performances have been disappointing, the coaches performance has been disappointing. We are a part of the on-field performance, it’s been poor on the field and the coaches performance has been poor, so we need to pick it up.
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