Flem274*
123/5
Love me some Misbah. No one blocks out an entire session then smashes a six five minutes before tea like Misbah does.
With this post you still managed to pull your chest and beat your..Yes; he had a poor start and the selectors over-reacted and blacklisted him for years despite the fact that he was regularly showing them how wrong they were by bossing it like the boss he is in domestic cricket. Younis, Yousuf and Inzamam were obviously fair enough; they were better batsmen than Misbah. That's just undeniable. Asim Kamal, aside from being highly debatable anyway, played just 12 Tests, so he was hardly keeping Misbah out very often.
Beyond that, it was a bit of a joke. Between 2001 and the end of 2006 Misbah played just 5 Tests even though - between them - Faisal, Hameed, Razzaq, Afridi, Malik, Raza, Latif, Adil and Bazid and Kamran Akmal played 80 as #3-6 batsmen. If you take out the keepers and Razzaq/Afridi (as they were offering a proper fifth bowling option; fair enough) you still get 50 Tests played by batsmen obviously inferior to the bloke who played 5. Yeah he didn't do very well in those five but the point is that you should back your blokes who prove they know how to score big runs and give them a chance to adapt instead of panicking and trying random punts; which is what this Misbah era is all about. I have no doubt that his poor treatment not only allowed him to develop his captaincy skills by playing so much as captain but also helped shape his captaincy style by showing him a glitch in the system that needed addressing.
All this is why I love Misbah so much; he's a living, breathing example of so many unpopular opinions I hold about cricket. Firstly, his age - this is a guy who had no real career to speak of in his prime, no former glory to keep his faith in his own ability based on, no long history of Test excellence to cling to when people inevitably pointed to his birth certificate during tough periods of poor form - none of that at all, and yet he got the recall at 30+ and showed the selectors just how wrong they were to leave him out all those years. He's averaging over 70 as captain; he's killing it and going along way to proving my hypothesis that older cricketers aren't 'finished' nearly as early as we tend to think, and that as long as they have the drive they can get over form slumps and blips just like 25 year olds can.
He's also a great advocate for selecting proven domestic performers - even from domestic competitions of dubious quality - and sticking with them if they're well ahead of the pack. This is another idea I hold close to my heart and one I think a lot of selectors gloss over in trying to overplay their hands and talent-spot. No-one gets credit for just doing the obvious and picking the bloke scoring lots of runs or taking lots of wickets but if you do something out of the ordinary and by some massive fluke it actually pays off, that's when you get recognised as a captain or an administrator, so a lot more punts are taken than necessary. I think this is even more true in Pakistan because of how Waqar and Wasim were discovered; people are convinced this is the only way. Misbah is the posterboy for logic and patience in more ways than one; he's incorporated this overall style into his captaincy and his team's selection process. Misbah was discarded early in his career but he didn't sulk or retire or accept bribes or throw matches; he just went back to domestic cricket and scored thousands and thousands of runs at an average above 50 - and he just kept doing that quietly year after year until he got another chance; you have to love that.
He also gives the figurative Virat Kohli to those aggression at all costs types who think you have to be macho and dictate terms to your opposition to win cricket games. You yourself have been very critical of his batting style but he's scoring loads of runs anyway by batting his way and working to his own strengths. Better still, the team has been winning under his style which has extended to the other batsmen that are selected and the no nonsense bowling plans. His whole style is measured, calculated and canny rather than aggressive and dominant and a lot of people have a big problem with this because they can't beat their chests and pull their dicks when they watch their team play under it, but it's something I strongly believe in, and it's working.
Haters can, frankly, suck it. I don't like Misbah because I think he's the greatest batsman or captain of all time; I like Misbah because he stands for a lot of the cricket philosophies I hold even just by keeping his place in the side. Every run he scores and every match his side wins is a little win for me and what I believe people get "wrong" about cricket.
), it was ****, it was horrible cricket.
