Misbah-ul-Haq’s one of those players who gets his own post even if we’ve got nothing to say now. He got 133 not out in a match where runs are as inevitable as weekend overeating.
He did his best to stand out from the crowd though - for much of his innings he was scoring at less than two an over. That’s what we like to see. Some of the world’s bowlers are going to be pretty bloody confused if he can persevere with his archaic tactics.
It seemed about time that Misbah-ul-Haq hit a Test hundred. One fifty wasn’t much of a Test record for someone we seem to write about on an almost daily basis.
He hit 161 not out against India, largely in partnership with Kamran Akmal who hit 119. Akmal’s innings should ensure he has plenty more opportunities to drop catches for Pakistan.
That’s what you want in a modern wicketkeeper - occasional innings that keep the selectors kidding themselves that you’re the next Gilchrist, allied with gloved clangers by the bucketload. That’s gloved ‘clangers’, as in ‘errors’ and not gloved ‘Clangers’, the whistling, woollen, miniature moon anteaters of children’s TV fame.
Misbah-ul-Haq’s innings took 351 balls. Twenty20 sloggery and Test blockery - what a guy.
Well, here we are again. The first Test between India and Pakistan is still poised, it could still go either way and again so much depends on Misbah-ul-Haq, who’s one of the not out batsmen.
Man of the match awards hardly ever take account of context. You’ve got one batsman who hit a blinding 110 when the match was in the balance and you’ve got another batsman who coasted to 160 when his team were already miles ahead - it goes to the guy who got 160.
In this match, the man of the match is likely to be a bowler, due to the low scores. While Anil Kumble’s a fantastic candidate with 4-38 and 3-55 so far in the second innings, surely any batsman who scores runs in a low-scoring game is playing as big a part? But when was the last time someone was man of the match for a pair of fifties? Batsmen have to score hundreds to get the award, but we’ll see.
Pakistan lead by 167 with five wickets in hand. Test cricket’s bloody brilliant, isn’t it? It’s been three days now and we’ve still no clue as to who’s going to win. It’s gone one way and then the other in a manner fundamentally impossible in the shorter formats.
At times like this, you can stick those shorter formats. Test cricket is THE BALLS.
Or himself for that matter. If you didn’t see Misbah-ul-Haq getting run out for 82, you’ll get an idea as to what happened from the accompanying picture.
Misbah was about to make his ground after a quickish single. The throw came in from Dinesh Karhik at backward point and Misbah jumped to avoid the ball. Unfortunately, this meant that he was airborne as he crossed the popping crease. If you don’t ground your bat or some part of yourself the other side of that line, then you haven’t made your ground. The ball hit the stumps and Misbah was out.
He knew instantly and proceeded to angrily swipe his bat at the tips of the grass, which is the least satisfying outlet for pent-up rage in the whole world. After returning to the pavilion, Misbah presumably found something more substantial to punish for his own mental aberration.
There are so many ways to get out. You always have to be on your guard. Mentally, Misbah had already made his ground - he was just evading a cricket ball. Unfortunately, mentally making your ground doesn’t cut it with the third umpire.
Poor sod.
We labelled Misbah-ul-Haq a Twenty20 specialist during that format’s World Cup. That was a bit misleading because we don’t particularly believe in being a specialist in one format or another.
The best cricketers play the match situation and the best batsmen weigh up what to do to score runs against whatever bowler they’re facing. It just so happened that at the time Misbah-ul-Haq was only playing Twenty20. Labelling him a specialist was more a way of highlighting the shortcomings of England’s so-called specialists. Basically, Misbah-ul-Haq is an international cricketer; Jeremy Snape is not.
So now he’s playing Tests as well and he already looks to be one of Pakistan’s most reliable batsmen, which is weird because today’s fifty was his first in Tests. We’ve seen enough to know that he’s up to the job of succeeding the previous ul-Haq though.
It’s just as well really, because if Mohammad Yousuf or Younis Khan don’t score runs, it’s hard to see where they’ll come from for Pakistan. Today, neither made any and Pakistan found themselves 142-8. At which point Misbah, rather than strike out madly in a desperate bid for whatever he could get, instead trusted Mohammad Sami to stay in and together they’ve put on 68 and will resume again tomorrow.
Hopefully this will be a low-scoring game. We’re not bothered who wins, but we’d hate to see Misbah’s great efforts being devalued by a subsequent avalanche of runs. In high-scoring Test matches, you sometimes feel like the winner’s just whoever cashes in the most when the going’s good. In a low-scoring game, every run’s earned.
Misbah-ul-Haq and Mohammad Sami earned their runs today.
How can a mere 40 overs of cricket contain so many twists and turns?
The last three or four overs in particular were dramatic dynamite. Commentators would say ‘Pakistan are almost certain to win now,’ one ball, yet find themsleves saying it was ‘India’s game to lose,’ the next.
It was unreal. Pakistan would lose a wicket, look dead and buried and then suddenly clout a pair of sixes. India would watch the ball disappear into the stands a few times and then clean bowl someone.
Joginder Sharma was the poor bastard entrusted with the final over. He’s barely played an international match, so it was understandable when his first delivery was a monstrous wide. Nerves will decide it, we thought.
Misbah-ul-Haq appeared to be immune to the tension when he pounded a gargantuan straight-driven six, but in fact he was the one who succumbed to the magnitude of the occasion, attempting a fairly-ludicrous over-the-shoulder loft down to fine leg which was all the more painful considering there were still three further deliveries and that he appeared to have the ability to put the ball where he wanted (the stands) when playing straight.
We won’t repeat ourself for a third time, but what a brilliant tournament and what a brilliant final.
India v Pakistan, ICC Twenty20 World Cup final at Johannesburg
India 157-5 (Gautam Gambhir 75 off 54 balls, Rohit Sharma 30 off 16 balls, Umar Gul 3-28)
Pakistan 152 all out (Misbah-ul-Haq 43 off 38 balls, Imran Nazir 33 off 14 balls, Irfan Pathan 3-16, RP Singh 3-26)
There’s a difference between being a Twenty20 specialist from county cricket and being an international-standard Twenty20 specialist. If you’re the former, you don’t really qualify for consideration in the latter category. There’s a kind of minimum skill level that’s essential. Ask England.
We mention Misbah-ul-Haq and his handiness for the first time and within a few hours he’s seeing Pakistan home against Australia with a stunning knock of 66 off 42 balls.
Pakistan had fallen to 46-4 after 6.4 overs chasing 165 when Misbah-ul-Haq came to the crease. For some reason Pakistan’s middle order, whoever it may contain, is ever-so-slightly more adept than their top order is incompetent.
In addition to yesterday’s recovery, they’ve come back from 33-3 after 5.5 overs to post 189 against Sri Lanka and 47-4 after 8.5 overs to tie with India on 141.
Wickets are less of an issue in Twenty20 in the sense that it’s fairly unlikely that a side will get bowled out. However, it takes quite an eye to start scoring quickly as soon as you arrive at the crease. It also takes a little of something else to not get flustered as the run-rate rises when your side’s in such a perilous position. Seems like Misbah-ul-Haq’s got the eye as well as the something.
It’s hard to know which statistic is the most useful for Twenty20 batting, but fortunately Misbah-ul-Haq’s top for pretty much all of them. The only batsman with a higher average than his 79 in this tournament is Brendan Taylor (107), but he’s scored fewer runs and at a slower rate.
No-one’s scored more than Misbah-ul-Haq’s tournament total of 158. Mahela Jayawardene has also hit 158 runs, but he’s scored them at a rate of 154.9 runs per hundred balls faced. Misbah-ul-Haq can boast a rate of 159.59 runs per hundred balls and that average of 79 is way above Jayawardene’s 52.66.