Pakistan must overcome mental battle: Misbah
Pakistan must learn from their mistakes against Australia: Misbah -Photo by AP
Pakistan’s Test and ODI captain, Misbah-ul-Haq, has backed his teammates to do well in the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka, despite a thumping loss against Australia in the final Twenty20 match in UAE.
Although Pakistan won the T20 series 2-1, their loss to Australia in the dead rubber in Dubai was their biggest yet and hardly the ideal send off that they needed before the ICC event.
Misbah, however, urged the Pakistan players to learn from their mistakes in the Australia series and also threw his weight behind T20 skipper Mohammad Hafeez.
“One thing should be clear that the captain alone is not responsible for a defeat or victory,” he said.
“One individual’s bad performance or mistake should not be singled out, the entire team must be focused upon.”
Misbah, who is no longer part of the national T20 squad, sounded confident of Pakistan’s prospects at the World T20 and believed his teammates had all the bases covered but needed to overcome only one major battle; the one in the head.
“In cricket we need to learn from any situation as we have quality players in batting and bowling. It is all in the mind and nothing else.”
Pakistan are strong contenders for the World T20 crown but will need mercurial players like Shahid Afridi, Umar Akmal and Umar Gul to step up and perform consistently over the course of the next few weeks.
Pakistan open their Group D campaign on September 23, when they meet New Zealand at Pallekele. The third team in their group is Bangladesh.
Before that, they face India in a high profile warm-up match in Colombo on September 17.
i guess no need to sweat we got all the right players luckily in this squad 2-3 batsman just need to block the end and take singles and I think each time our team hits over 150 our bowling should be able to get us a win. However in case of run chases for totals over 140-150 runs , we need to attack by Afridi / Razzaq/ Nazir if they hit a quick 50-60 run knock that should keep the run chase in balance but must NOT hold these 3 big guns for the last 5 overs to chase the runs.. good luck to team Pak I think they should get to the semi’s and if they show presense of mind even in the finals.. Again got to use the big guns with an attacking approach rather then hide them to the end !!!
Misbah we will miss you in the middle order. You should be leading the team in all three formats
Not A quality Team who can win T20 World Cup The following players even don’t deserve to be in the Team.
Akmal Brothers, Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Afridi, Sohail Tanvir, Imran Nazir, Sami, Yasir Arafat
The one should be included on Merit.
Owais Zia, Hammad Azam, Junaid Khan, Abdur Rehman, Anwar Ali, Tanvir Ahmad, Fawad Alam
Are you going for T20 World Cup or a TEST MATCH Series?????
If Pakistan want to achive something in this tournament then they have to accept the importance of single and double along with boundry form the loose ball. They have to play cricket and not to entertain public.They must throw out culture of four and sixes from their mind.Now a days cricket is more technical and analyst study every bowler and batsman of opposing team.It is the job of coach to mentally prepare their players and give a plan.It is the duty of captain and players to impliment the plan in the middle.Hard work in middle with mental strngth will bring good result.Hope for the best and prepare for worst.
what about getting the basics right? I mean, in the last T20 we lost Mr. Razzaq our vetran of thousands of matches wasn’t even willing to rotate the strike. Does anyone remember how Australia (read Mike Hussey) beat us in the WC Semi finals: By rotating the strike and hitting out in the one good over for them.
Most of our batsmen get out playing outrageous shots and are to be blamed.
Yes PCB should immediately dispatch Sher Dil as Psychologist for mental toughness training of team members in Colombo. Hurry up !! before its too late or any other team hires him ….
Misbah himself never learned anything and advising other team mates to learn. His ability to create opportunity for opponents by batting as slow as possible itself is testimonial enough as to how much he has learned. How can you call this a team when you only mention the name of three or four players as match winners and ridicule the rest by completely ignoring them. What kind of motivation you’re expecting from others with this kind of mentality. Intelligence has never been Misbah’s forte when it comes to captaincy as proven by himself time and time again. He goes with typical legacy style of captaincy without any out-of-the-box thinking. His choice of that many spinners in the final one-day against Australia is another example that his mind isn’t confident enough, yet he says “it’s all in the mind”. I wish Pakistan team performs well in T20, but regardless someone should teach these lads including Hafeez to talk-less and just perform. Every tournament we hear huge claims by these Pakistani lads, and most of the time they under perform. Then the story ends with “We learned a lot”. Well my humble request to these lads is that “Just Learn” and “Perform”. Making big claims isn’t going to help when you don’t even know what other teams have prepared for and made themselves capable of.
Misbah….Pakistan needs you in the middle order when chasing 150 plus. These all rounders cannot do it. So sad you are not there, you will be missed.
Have you forgotten his innings in Mohali, which cost Pakistan the place in the final…….
I was in Johannesburg for the first T20 final with India in which Misbah brought back the team within winning stroke of winning after Younus got injured Imran Nazir run out and Our captain Hafeez dropped an easy catch on boundary and gave India six extra runs. Pak lost from 5 runs.
In T-20, u need to have youngsters and not TUK,TUK players
I agree with you Misbah Bhai. All the best team Pakistan God bless you.
yea, like you did in world cup and T-20…
Mr sincere what a big lecture for Misbah. I think you have never played cricket only to watch on you tv screen.