What I’m trying to say is that there were bad moments in the Misbah era as well, but I don’t think it was even close to as terrible as the 2007 WC and all of the horrible events that took place afterwards.
A day after we were knocked out of the World Cup in 2007, our head coach Bob Woolmer passed away. By all accounts he was loved by Pakistani fans and the Pakistani players. He also was very interactive with the Pakistani fan base, if I remember correctly, more so than really any other coach we have had. It was eventually ruled that he died of natural causes but there were a lot of rumors and gossip about suspecting foul play.
A couple years after that there was the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan national team. Just an absolutely horrible horrible event and really damaged Pakistan’s image on the global stage. We were supposed to be part hosts in the 2011 WC and that was removed and international cricket was not played in Pakistan for 10 years.
A year after that there was the spot fixing scandal and our Test captain and our 2 bowlers who were touted as the new Wasim and Waqar were banned.
People who lived through this horrible time are going to have a better memory of the Misbah era than you will because this period of 2007-2011 was just absolutely horrible for Pakistani cricket. At the very least, Misbah brought stability to our cricket and no one could call him corrupt or any of those kinds of things. He also turned UAE into a fortress, drew a series in England, and got us the #1 Test ranking for the first time in history.
Again I heard the stories on the attack, as well as the spot fixing scandal and have seen highlights of 2007, but I haven't lived through that era and unless you live through an era you'll never know the truth about it.
Misbah didn't bring stability to our cricket. We were winners in 2009, in 2010 semi finalists, in 201q Sf each time being knocked out it required the strongest teams of that respective tournament India and Australia to knock us out.
We were stable as a unit in 2011, way before misbah came in.
I can 100% call him corrupt, you don't need to spot fix or cause a terrorist attack to be labelled as the villian.
As for red ball cricket, I've never complained about misbah on red ball, but make no mistake anytime this dofus has touched our white ball cricket it leads a lasting damage for years on end.
Sorry but I don't care about eras I haven't witnessed. I didn't choose to born late, my cricket experience is from 2011 and onwards and those the eras ik about and will talk about.
I witnessed the era where pur red ball cricket teams thrives but our white ball cricket team fell apart, I'm proud to have lived in the 2017 era where I finally got rid of misbah and I will defend 2018 and 2019 with my life, because I don't mind losing or failing if I atleast see progress being made.
In sarfi's era certain positive things are still in play.
1) Babar being no 3 in odi where he SHOULD BE.
2) The imam and fakhar partnership which was succesful before imam's fitness and short ball exposure even then abid ali was on his way to replace imam for good, the heart attack post wc was the issue.
3) Hafeez and Malik that people critise its because of their 163 and 183 sr that we even avg 154/ 6of 18.3 in 2021 t20 wc whereas 2022 wc we avg 130 for 7 in 18.3 with the likes of Shan, Babar, rizwan and chacha leading the pack.
4) shadab Khan who you praise on end, was picked up during the sarfi era and made front line, before that yasir shah and shadab were competing and yasir shah was front line although the rape case could have frontlined shedsy tbh.
5) Shaheen was frontline discovered during the sarfi era.
6) the prospect of imad opening the t20 bowling was also a tactic first employed by sarfraz during his 2016 captaincy where azhar ali had to sit out for one game against Zimbabwe.
7) The prospect of rizwan who you praise on end, then idea of him being a middle order in odi whereas previously he use to bat at 6/7, was also Done during the Australian series.
Compare that to post misbah as coach and Babar as captain era we got
1) Return of shehzad and akmal and irfan which failed miserably.
2) Return of imam as an opener in t20 for one game which also failed, Sarfi failed at this earlier so on what basis was misbah thinking to copy that strategy?
3) Kushdil shah, Asif Ali and Chacha became mainstring in our t20 sides and later in pdi side after Babar became captain and these 3 consistently have been useless when faced with half a decent bowling attack, on what basis is chacha batting in the lower order when he's clearly not a finisher or a bowler?
Asif Ali was also a feature in 2019 don't get me wrong, bit not a main feature, he got dropped and booted after a few wc games and them brought back by misbah in t20 out of the blue.
4) Under Babar, Shaheen, Naseem and haris rauf aka the iconic trio are a spent force. Shaheen in 2019-2021 was consistently hitting that unplayable inswing at 140+ clicks, and now he's a Chapman bunny if champman manages to even play 10 deliveries it's game over. Can barely bowl beyond 132?
5) someone like Abdullah shafiq who has played 7 List A games was given zero match practise deapite having an entire NZ series and asia cup to experiment with, he was Brought in last minute due to falhar injury, Cresit to him for performing, but why on earth would you bring a debutant to play in a god damn vortual pressure semi final in asia cup? Out of the blue? Had he not hit that 111 against Sri Lanka, everyone here would have eaten the debutant alive and justified Babar opening?
Similarly on what basis is saud batting at no 5 in odi? When clearly you want an imad type player who averages 42 and sr of 100+ to in odi to fill that role?
6) Lastly on what basis was nawaz made frontline in every single white ball format over imad? I get t20 fine, they wanted to test a newbie over a dude who had a bad 2021 wc, but why on earth are you replacing him in odi? What does nawaz with an avg of 18 and an abysmal sr and a higher economy have any business replacing imad at a time inad was willing to still play odi?
And dint say experimentation for god sakes. Babar as a captain isn't even playing imad for 2 games on his comeback, deapite him being fully fit.
Every single decison these 2 clowns have made has backfired repeatedly with no so called experimentation lasting.
Babar said he'll use this series to rotate and try different conbos. What rotation, its been 3 games with one washed out, and all his did was replace Amir for abass afridi?
This entire set up is a joke, with injuries upon injuries, memes upon memes etc.
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agree
