Pakistan never win tests in Australia but sure, let's blame one guy for the entire squad failures.
Just look back at the 2016 tour where Pakistani bowlers got destroyed by Aussies. What is Misbah supposed to do? Teach them to magically start bowling better? Start bowling himself?
I am intrigued to see how well Misbah does in this role. I think he can exceed in that because he is a good thinker and tactical. .
You may have watched this series, but at the risk of sounding obnoxious (sorry!) you don't appear to have understood what you were watching.
Pakistan's problems in Australia in 2016-17 basically were almost entirely the fault of appalling choices made by Misbah-ul-Haq.
I attended the First and Third Tests in their entirety.
Pakistan lost the First Test by 39 runs.
In the First Innings, Mohammad Amir took 4-97 and Wahab Riaz took 4-89. But two problems were already glaringly obvious. The lack of a fourth seamer was exhausting the main bowlers and Misbah's horrible leg-side fields were crippling Yasir Shah. Unfortunately Amir damaged his knee on Day 1, and was semi-fit for the rest of the tour.
Misbah didn't understand that in Australia whether you are a quick or a leggie, you need to bowl on off-stump to an off-side field because batsmen only get out caught by the keeper or slips.
Pakistan then collapsed to 150 all out (Azhar 5, Younis 0, Misbah 4, Shafiq 2) because they hadn't arrived in Australia early enough to acclimatize to the conditions. The itinerary had been agreed by Misbah and Sethi before Mickey Arthur had been appointed.
They then contained Australia to 202-5, and even Rahat Ali bowled decently and took 2-40. They then fell short by 39 runs in the Second Innings because one of the top order batsmen failed for the second time in the match...…….Misbah-ul-Haq.
The Second Test was on a dead wicket at the MCG. Absolutely stone dead.
Pakistan actually declared their First Innings at 443-9, which was a mistake because it was already obvious that their bowlers were going to struggle (Starc had taken 1-125, and Lyon 1-115).
Australia then amassed 624-9 declared because Amir was neither quick enough nor tall enough to extract anything from the dead wicket, while Yasir Shah again bowled that horrid leg-stump line to a leg-side field and took 3-207 at over 5 runs per over.
Yet again, the fault was 99% due to Misbah-ul-Haq. He wasted his leggie bowling a line and to a field which has failed in Australia for 130 years, and it failed again. But he also had to overbowl his quicks because they hadn't taken an all-rounder as fourth seamer, so Amir and Wahab and Sohail got slower and less accurate as the innings dragged on and on.
Pakistan then only had to survive 68 overs on the dead wicket to draw the match. Unfortunately Misbah added a brave 0 to his First Innings 11, and the match was lost.
The Third Test was universally recognized as the worst instance of captaincy ever seen in Australia.
Misbah had worn out Sohail Khan in the previous Test by overbowling him, and Amir was still only half-fit. Wahab Riaz was okay, but Misbah bewilderingly picked the medium-paced trundler Imran Khan to open the bowling with the unfit Amir.
The wicket was pretty dead, but not as bad as the MCG, and by the time Australia declared at 538-8 Misbah had bowled his attack into the ground. Imran was toothless, Amir was bowling on one leg and yet again Yasir Shah bowled to that insane leg-side field and went for 1-167 in just 40 overs.
Pakistan were cooked. They struggled to post 315 all out, even though Younis Khan made 175 not out on a blameless wicket.
But Australia was running out of time to force a result. Pakistan just needed to bowl a probing off-stump line to delay their Second Innings declaration, so that their batsmen would only have to face 70 or so overs on the Fifth Day.
Well, that is how any sane or well-informed captain would have proceeded. But poor Misbah had completely mentally disintegrated by the Third Test, and was now captaining on autopilot as if he was playing a game at home.
It's true that he had overworked his quick bowlers and bowled them into the ground. But Pakistan only needed to keep Australia at the crease for 50-60 overs before they declared, and he just needed to get one last assault out of those bowlers.
The rest is history. To be precise, it is the history of the worst piece of captaincy ever perpetrated on Australian soil.
Yasir Shah had been slaughtered all tour when he bowled to Asian leg-side fields. It had to be hoped that he wouldn't bowl at all, but Mohammad Amir wasn't fit to bowl due to the chronic overwork Misbah had imflicted on him for the last 3 weeks.
Misbah needed Wahab Riaz and Imran Khan to open the bowling and bowl a mile outside off-stump to a packed off-side field. With no one-day wide rule, Pakistan needed to bowl out the remaining 50 overs of the day and restrict Australia to around 200-4, which would require them to then use up 5-6 overs the next day before they could declare.
But Misbah decided to open the bowling with Yasir Shah. To that stupid leg-side field.
Yasir Shah returned figures of 14-0-124-1. When Wahab Riaz was belatedly brought into the attack he bowled 7-0-28-0!
Misbah enabled Australia to race to a declaration at 241-2 in just 32 overs, so that Pakistan had to face 18 overs before the close.
Pakistan lost again, bowled out in 80.2 overs. Which means that if Misbah had bowled the right bowlers to the right field they would have drawn the Third Test and the Second Test.
Pakistan's 2016-17 defeat in Australia turned out to be almost entirely due to the rank incompetence of their geriatric skipper. He picked the wrong bowlers, gave them the wrong fields and he bowled them into the ground.
And he also managed to mess up the batting too. Over 2 years had passed since Babar Azam had scored a century for Pakistan A versus Australia. He was ready for Test cricket, but Misbah's desperation to retain himself, Younis and Hafeez as three geriatric batsmen meant that when Babar Azam toured Australia 26 months later he was still a vulnerable rookie rather than the seasoned international he should have been.
