Recently a respected British newspaper
declared Pakistan’s Misbahul Haq as the
best contemporary Test captain in the
cricket-playing world.
As captain Misbah-ul-Haq has been unique.
He might also be the modern-day game’s
first ‘war-time captain’.
When he was recalled to the Pakistan side
and handed over the captaincy in 2011, the
country was in the midst of an existential
crisis. Extremist terror outfits were
bombing mosques, markets and shrines,
unabashedly downing civilians, cops and
soldiers.
Apart from good, consistent
cricket, the skipper must have
leadership skills found in a
military general or in a political
leader
The country stood on the brink of a war
that today has come to pass; a war that is
now actually promising a safer Pakistan.
But back in 2011, Pakistan was staring into
the abyss. Its rulers, military and polity
were unsure how to contain the rampaging
monsters of militancy, extremism,
corruption and crime. The country was also
facing growing international isolation. For
example, no Test side was willing to tour
Pakistan after the Sri Lankan team was
attacked in Lahore by militants in 2009.
Misbah has never led the Pakistan cricket
team in Pakistan. He’s never had what in
cricket is called ‘the home advantage’. Ever
since 2009, most of Pakistan’s ‘home series’
have taken place in the UAE.
More than in any other sport, in cricket,
teams have to do well on foreign tours and
in front of foreign crowds, to fully prove
their mantle. That’s what the Pakistan team
has been doing ever since 2009 but
especially after Misbah took up the
captaincy in 2011.
All of Misbah’s games as captain have been
played, won, lost and drawn on foreign soil.
The irony of it all is that Misbah, who today
has risen to become Pakistan’s most
successful Test captain, was not even in the
team when he was hastily made captain!
When he was given the captaincy, he was
making his third comeback to the side and
that too at the ripe old age of 36 an age
when most international cricketers either
retire or start thinking about retirement.
He had made his debut for the national
squad in 2001, but lost his place (due to loss
of form) in 2002.
However, despite the fact that he continued
to perform well in the domestic circuit, he
could not break back into the side till years
later when he was finally recalled in 2007.
He almost became a hero in his first
comeback event, the T20 World Cup in
South Africa. And what a comeback it was.
Misbah’s batting helped Pakistan reach the
finals.
He almost turned the final (against India)
on its head. Pakistan’s batting collapsed
while chasing the Indian score. But Misbah
held his nerve and then began smashing the
Indian bowling attack to all parts of the
stadium, getting Pakistan ever so close to a
stunning victory, but only to get out in the
very last over.
Alas, in 2010 he lost form again, and also
his place in the side.
Between the retirement of former Pakistan
skipper, Inzamam (in 2007), and Misbah’s
elevation to the post of captain in 2011, the
team went through five captains!
The team could not play at home, because
that home kept plunging into extremist
violence and political turmoil. During this
testing period, the squad was also being
torn apart by continuous infighting,
players’ rebellions and charges of spot-
fixing.
What’s more, when a bewildered Pakistan
cricket board decided to hand over the
captaincy to Misbah, he was still struggling
to gain the kind of form required to play
international cricket.
It was a temporary arrangement. He was
asked to be a caretaker of sorts till the
board could come up with a more
permanent candidate for the captaincy. But
this is when Misbah began to play his best
cricket.
After consolidating his place in the team
again as a solid middle-order batsman,
Misbah slowly began to peel off whatever
that was left of the culture weaved by
Inzamam’s four-year-captaincy stint
(2003-2007).
Under Misbah cricket alone became the
thing with which to measure a player’s
worth. He also tried to subdue the team’s
reputation of being frustratingly
unpredictable and impulsive by encouraging
a more watchful, planned and cautious
approach towards the game.
He was fervently criticised for this by
critics and fans alike. But quietly he
managed to pull the team together and out
of its existential doldrums and inspired its
slow march upwards in world rankings.
But Misbah’s steady approach and tactics
not only supported the curbing of flashy
cricketing skills (because they smacked of
recklessness), they consequentially made the
role of spinners more prominent in the
team than that of the quick bowlers.
This was a clear break from the past. The
fast bowlers had been in the forefront of
Pakistani attacks ever since the mid-1980s.
Under Misbah, the spinners took
precedence, and this precedence saw him
introduce one of the finest and most
innovative off-spinners in the game: Saeed
Ajmal.
Under Misbah, Ajmal became the team’s
main strike bowler. Batsmen exhibiting
patience and good technique were preferred
and encouraged (Asad Shafique, Azhar Ali),
even though, the bulk of the batting load
was largely shared between Misbah and the
team’s other old warhorse, Younis Khan.
Ever so slowly but surely, Misbah’s tactics
began to bear fruit. However, on the way,
he also managed to gather some exceedingly
vocal critics who seemed enormously
disturbed by his curious, cautious attitude
and the way he was dismantling the team
culture designed by Inzamam and then by
the short-term captains that had followed
Inzamam in quick succession.
Teams under good and influential captains
begin to reflect the personality of that
person. Mushtaq Mohammad and Imran
Khan’s teams reflected the flamboyant and
intrepid ways of their captains, and same
can be said about the team under Wasim
Akram.
Like Inzamam’s personality, the team
culture under him too had become reticent
and contrary: socially introverted, but
exhibitionistic in matters of the faith, even
though as a batsman he was extremely
flamboyant.
The team under Misbah evolved a more
stoic and determined dimension. Like
Misbah, the team did not wear its faith on
its sleeves. Faith once again became a
strictly private matter in Pakistan cricket.
Misbah’s team was neither as colourful as
the teams under Mushtaq and Imran, nor
anything like what it had become during
Inzi’s captaincy.
By 2013, Misbah had plucked more Test and
ODI victories than most Pakistani captains.
Two years later in 2015, he finally overtook
the joint Test captaincy record of former
greats, Imran Khan and Javed Miandad, to
become the Pakistani Test captain with the
most wins.
His batting average as a captain has
remained to be over 50, and he has notched
up more fifties and hundreds as a skipper
than he was able to during any other stage
in his career as a batsman.
It won’t be incorrect to suggest that with a
stoic, quiet but stubborn determination,
Misbah has admiringly faced a number of
some unprecedented challenges.
The kind of circumstances he as a captain
was faced with, such as cricketing
controversies that he was never a part of,
and the violence and turmoil in his country
that threw Pakistan cricket into exile he
had to beat much bigger odds to become a
great captain compared to those faced by his
contemporaries in the country’s elite group
of captains.
© Dawn News
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