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"Some part of the blame must also go to Misbah-ul-Haq" : Waqar Younis

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http://arynews.tv/en/waqar-younis-on-pakistan-australia-whitewash/

Former head coach Waqar Younis was an eye witness to Pakistan’s 3-0 whitewash in a Test series in Australia and like many experts, analysts and wise fans Waqar too was disappointed with the capitulation.

Here is how he responded to ARYNews questions on Pakistan’s fourth consecutive whitewash in Tests in Australia.

Q: A lot of people had expected a better show from Pakistan as the Australian team they confronted this time weren’tt as strong as before. Are you overtly disappointed with the 3-0 bashing?

Waqar: Yes, not many people had expected this 3-0 result. We all were thinking that this Pakistan team is experienced, their batting is better and bowling was in good form. But unfortunately results are in not their favour. They committed a lot of mistakes and it seemed that the team did not play with unity.

We had played well in England for a 2-2 series draw and then were okay against the West Indies but our players did not live up to expectations reposed in them.

The most disappointing aspect was fielding, we dropped too many catches and when catches are dropped leaving bowlers disheartened.

Yasir Shah was the focus of attention but he couldn’t take wickets which were expected of him nor he could stop the flow of runs from the Australian batsmen and that let the team down badly. In my opinion our batting also did not show unity.

We committed major mistakes.

Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq did well in batting but the expectations from Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan were not met, they looked out of touch, Younis in the first two Tests and Misbah in the whole series.

Q: When you were coach you always stressed that Misbah needs to be aggressive in his planning and strategy as captain. In this series Misbah was evidently out of sorts and his defensive tactics, viz a viz, a six three leg side field for Yasir brought severe criticism for him. Do you think Misbah should share the blame?

Waqar: Some part of the blame must also go to Misbah. The style of cricket you play in UAE is not suited to Australian conditions.

Wickets in Australia are fast and bouncy so you have to change the style, so despite keeping defensive fields Misbah couldn’t stop the flow of runs. Misbah committed mistake by setting defensive fields and on top of that he was not performing and that added pressure.

The fourth day of the Sydney Test gave a picture that its school cricket as Australians thrashed Pakistan bolwers. We committed many mistakes and it didn’t look like we were world number one Test teams a few months back. I never thought of such a performance.

Q: Former Australian captain Ian Chappell bashed Pakistan by saying that from now on Australian Board should consider before inviting Pakistan. Was that too harsh or too true?

Waqar: Ian Chappell is an experienced commentator and and a very senior analyst so he has hiw own opinion. Its not necessary that one should agree with his comment.

A few months ago we were world number one in Tests . I accept that we failed to give good performance in Australia so Ian has his own opinion and I don’t want to comment on that

Q: So this was fourth whitewash in succession and fifth overall if you take the 1972 whitewash as well. So how should we plan fo an Australian tour?

Waqar: Leave aside the future, we need to change our style of cricket and it should happen now, today. To win in away series even Australia and South Africa play differently.

We won in England because of our bowlers so I am saying that for some time now to change the style of cricket, take more risk and only the we can get better results. If we play the style of 1970s or 80s then we cannot effect better results.

Q: Now Tests are gone, format where we were expected to give better results. Now we have five one-day internationals where we are already feared to lose 5-0. Do you see any better result?

Waqar: I hope we don’t lose the ODIs 5-0. We played defensive cricket in the ODIs in England but after losing the first four one-days we played aggressive style in the last match where Shoaib Malik, Azhar Ali and Sarfraz batted very well.

We won because we had no pressure and played with aggression so we need to play that real brand of cricket and reply Australia with aggression. That is the only way to beat Australia.
 
Misbah is the man responsible for this failure. He has been the captain for more than five years and has had complete authority and time to build his team which he never did. He has the lowest rate of winning away from home. He took people of his liking (rahat, imran, yasir etc) all yes men types who failed miserably. In order to save his friend hafeez he did not take any opener to Australia. Babar Azam suffered because of this insecure man. Misbah does not want aggressive players or performers in the team because that will only expose his own weaknesses. If there were accountability in our set up, Misbah would have been sacked.
 
Misbah is the man responsible for this failure. He has been the captain for more than five years and has had complete authority and time to build his team which he never did. He has the lowest rate of winning away from home. He took people of his liking (rahat, imran, yasir etc) all yes men types who failed miserably. In order to save his friend hafeez he did not take any opener to Australia. Babar Azam suffered because of this insecure man. Misbah does not want aggressive players or performers in the team because that will only expose his own weaknesses. If there were accountability in our set up, Misbah would have been sacked.

Misbah also started WW1, WW2, all major earthquakes & tsunamis too.
 
Waqar why didn't you groom a decent seam attack ? You've been coach for 4 out of the last 6 years yet persisted endlessly with your favourite golden boys Rahat and Wahab despite their poor bowling averages. I thought bowling was your strength yet under your tenure in ODIs we had the second worst bowling attack in the world and that's including Associates.

Why call for youngsters now when you didn't give young batsmen like Babar and Aslam a proper run in Test side when we had all those series in Asia and UAE under your tenure ? We could've blooded them in BEFORE all these tough overseas trips. Arthur is doing in six months what you didn't do in 4 years.

You call for youngsters yet gave debut to 39 year old Rifatullah Mohmand.

And where was all this aggressive cricket when you were coach or captain ?

Not to mention you recommended Azhar Ali as ODI captain.
 
This was definitely Misbah's worst series in terms of on-field captaincy but can we stop with this "You can't use UAE tactics abroad" nonsense? We won two tests in England using UAE tactics and I didn't hear Waqar bringing up that rubbish.

We didn't lose because UAE tactics don't work, we lost because the bowlers were terrible and Misbah looked disinterested.
 
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This was definitely Misbah's worst series in terms of on-field captaincy but can we stop with this "You can't use UAE tactics abroad" nonsense? We won two tests in England using UAE tactics and I didn't hear Waqar bringing up that rubbish.

We didn't lose because UAE tactics don't work, we lost because the bowlers were terrible and Misbah looked disinterested.

It was indeed a matter of time before Misbah lovers were going to trash Waqar for calling a spade a spade on Misbah ul haq, the classic Misbah fan club dilemma.
 
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