Misbahs quotes from todays TV Show: “If you want to see a players performance, you see his stats and results. Results are important. If you look at results so far, results have been good.” “Look at our performance since 2011, we beat Sri Lanka, India in India, we won the Asia Cup, beat West Indies in West Indies. We have been poor only in this year. The reason for our downfall is that in previous years we were playing in conditions which suited us. But this year when our team went to South Africa, they were inexperienced and they were playing in alien conditions. There our batsmen struggled. Even in Champions Trophy, we were playing in England in alien conditions. Similarly in Zimbabwe, we were playing on seaming pitches. This is why our batting failed and now they are low in confidence, and we have been playing with top teams this year. So even when we’re playing at our ‘home’ we’re not performing due to lack of confidence. When we beat England 3-0, we were high on confidence because we had won 3-4 series before that. But now batting is under pressure. The players are not bad, they are the same players who won us all those matches since 2011. The issue is lack of confidence and bad form, these two things are intermingled.” “When you play 3-4 bad matches obviously the confidence is low. People who think we don’t do preparation or tactical and strategic planning are wrong. Obviously we make plans, but sometimes those plans don’t work because we are playing against top teams. This does not mean we aren’t doing anything, I myself as the captain and the management are doing our best. These players will perform again.” (In response to Shoaib Akhter’s criticism that Misbah hides at #4)“I always say that sending a performing batsmen at the position of non-performing batsman is not the solution. Now 6 batsmen are not performing, which batsman should I cover? If opener is not performing, sending me to open in place of him is not the solution.” “We also tried the 7-batsmen idea against England. Experts will tell you that when 6 batsmen don’t perform, the 7th won’t perform either. When you are 25-5 or 50-5, playing 7 batsmen doesn’t help. Major responsibility is on the top 6 batsmen. The tail-enders are supposed to contribute only 25-30 runs. It’s unfortunate that currently the all-rounders are not performing.” “I ask those who talk on TV to tell me the SR of batsmen playing from No. 3 to No. 4-5 overall. Some modern players have good SR but generally batsmen at these positions have SR in the 70s. If I have a poor technique and still I am the highest run-scorer in ODIs and highest run-scorer in tests and ODIs combined in 2013, then what’s the problem? The main thing is runs and I am getting them. We are even getting out in 20 overs, so in these cases the SR doesn’t matter. If I bat at all positions from 1-7 then you can blame me for batting failure.” “I can only support a player, I can only give him confidence, but at the end it is the player’s job to perform. Credit doesn’t go to individual players. You perform as a team, and win and lose as a team.” “You should check what was the team’s ranking in T20s before I became captain, I only played 3 series. We won against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and lost against England by 1-2. Please tell me how did I take the team from No.1 Ranking to No. 7 by losing only 2 matches?” “As for aggressive captaincy, by looking at Inzi’s general posture, one could say that he didn’t look aggressive, but he was, He played big innings, he hit sixes and all that. Have I not been aggressive? Have I not hits sixes? Should I put a rocket-launcher to a player’s face to show that I’m aggressive? Aggressive captaincy is playing sensibly and taking wickets and if the situation demands being defensive then we play defensively.” “Shoaib Akhter and Mohammad Yousuf are legends, I respect them, they have made a lot of contributions to the team. But everyone has his opinion, I think whenever there is need for aggression then I am aggressive. If we change things the proper way then we can serve cricket. Even we are hurt and disappointed from these losses, but that doesn’t mean we should change the whole team.” “Tell me one thing, how many matches did we lose while defending a target, when have I not gone to the bowlers and given them tips? Haven’t we bowled out World No. 1 team for 184? Bowlers have always performed, we even dismissed teams for 220. As for batsmen, should I go as a runner with the batsman to guide them and give them tips?” “We have done a lot of hard work in training. Every player did half-hour practice for bouncers. If we’re not performing, it doesn’t mean are not planning and practicing. We are Asians, we play on the front foot naturally and when we go on back foot we lose wickets. If you don’t know the reality then you shouldn’t criticize.” “All players know very well that if they keep giving bad performances they will get dropped, they know that they are answerable to me, the management, the board and the chairman. Again, the biggest problem is that all your players, like Umar Amin, Umar Akmal, Asad Shafiq, Ahmad Shehzad, Nasir Jamshed etc. are inexperienced. We DO talk to them, sometimes softly and sometimes we are hard on them. All players need time to develop. Even greats like Tendulkar took 8-100 matches to learn about the game. So keep this in mind. It’s not like that we don’t talk to them when they are not performing.” “I don’t believe someone is plotting against me. When I support them with honesty and sincerity and keep them in the team and do all my effort to make them succeed. It doesn’t come to my mind that someone is against me. These same players have won us matches in the past. This is cricket. Bad times come for every player and even great players find it hard to get out of these times. This is just a phase, nothing else.” “Is there any list of my right decisions on the field? The Biggest thing is that when you win everything looks good and when you lose everything looks bad. Haven’t we bowled out teams for 184? Haven’t we reduced teams to 165-4? Haven’t we bowled out a team for 130 when they were chasing only 209 runs? Where was their captain then? Why didn’t he influence his team? They lost match by 70-80 runs, where was their innovation? Everyone’s decisions can be right and wrong. It’s the players who prove those decisions as right and wrong.” (Speaking about playing Sohail Tanvir at #5) “It’s logical, when such decisions pay off then they become very good. The logic was that, if you watched the previous match, he (Tanvir) batted brilliantly and scored in the power-play and made 25-30 runs. So this (the previous match) was in our mind, the only purpose of playing Tanvir and Wahab in the team is that our tail-enders can’t even score 5 runs. They should be able to score at least 20-30 runs. So that is why we brought Tanvir in the powerplay. We figured he could hit a few boundaries, even if he got out it wouldn’t put pressure on us.” “As for Asad Shafiq, if we look at his whole career, he has played as an opener or at No. 3. He wants to play up the order because he finds it difficult to play in the lower order. So you can say I sacrificed my number and sent him at No. 4 where he is more comfortable. Then I can handle the pressure at no. 5. Otherwise I already play at No. 4. It was not a knee-jerk reaction, this was always the plan.” “You can’t foresee the future, just hope for good, even as muslims we are supposed to think positively. Last time we played in SA, the result was 3-2, even the final match was close. In sha Allah we will do our best. Win and loss are part of the game.”
Posted on: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 17:40:50 +0000
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