Misbah happy with Pakistan's 'special wins'

AFP Published December 28, 2013

ABU DHABI: Pakistan captain Misbah-ul Haq termed the one-day victories over South Africa and Sri Lanka as “special wins” which meant his team ended a tough year on a high.

Pakistan beat South Africa 2-1 last month - their first-ever one-day series win over the Proteas - before clinching the Sri Lanka series 3-2 on Friday.

Even though Pakistan lost the fifth and final match by two wickets in Abu Dhabi, Misbah said the series win was satisfying.

“I think it was a tough year for us but the two series we won in South Africa and now against Sri Lanka, they are very special and ended our year on a high note,” Misbah said after Friday's game.

The win over Sri Lanka was Pakistan's seventh one-day series win this year -- their best-ever in a calendar year -- which also included a 2-1 victory against India in January.

Misbah hoped the one-day series win over Sri Lanka would lift his team's morale ahead of the three-Test series starting in Abu Dhabi from Tuesday.

“We did struggle in the middle of the year,” said Misbah of Pakistan's loss in the Champions Trophy in June in England.

“We have to improve our fielding because we had Friday's match in our hands but we let it go because of poor fielding.”

Misbah hit a solid 51 to end the year with 1373 runs in 34 one-days -- the highest by any player in 2013 -- to lead Pakistan to 232 all out. Sri Lanka sneaked through in the final over with Dinesh Chandimal hitting an unbeaten 64.

Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews showed disappointment over the series loss.

“We were good enough to get over it but I think we were nowhere near our brand of cricket and disappointed that we lost the series,” said Mathews, describing defeat in the first match as the turning point.

“If you look at the series, the first game was very crucial, we lost that by 11 runs and had we won that game we would have been sitting 3-2 winners,”said Mathews of the match in Sharjah.

Sri Lanka levelled the series in Dubai with a two-wicket win before Pakistan won the third and fourth matches to take an unbeatable 3-1 lead.

Mathews said his team will be more competitive in Tests with experienced batsman Mahela Jayawardene and ace spinner Rangana Herath joining the squad.

“We played without Herath and Jayawardene in the one-days but they will back for the Tests and so we will be at our full strength and we will be more competitive,” said Mathews.

The second Test will be played in Dubai (January 8-12) and the third in Sharjah (January 16-20).

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Hak_Kay

Dec 28, 2013 10:49pm

Calling them special wins may be a feel good factor but the reality is that you have failed to plan the very last match. Be a realist and focus on your flaws and think about your upcoming matches and think about the excuses that you will make again and again in the face of failure. My prediction is that Hafeez is going to fail and Rameez Raja will keep on making embarrassing statements.

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Najma

Dec 29, 2013 12:15am

If a picture is worth 1,000 words then Misbah should shake hand and give the captaincy to where it belongs and that is Shahid Afridi. Thank you Dawn fpr choosing this photo.

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SKhan

Dec 29, 2013 01:08am

As always the series win will cover the flaws in performances and captaincy Can someone ask Misbah on what basis Anwar Ali was not played for 4 matches and given chance in the last match only? why he was not given the full quota of 10 overs? Why he failed to mention Anwar contribution in posting a respectable target? The answer is simple, Anwar is from Karachi and he will be used in the same way as Asad Shafiq and Sarfaraz ahmed were used and discarded from ODIs just because they belong to Karachi Hafeez has suddenly become everyone favorite by scoring on flat tracks against a very mediocre bowling attack and guess what he is immediately drafted in Test squad where he will displace one of the younger players which is a big shame for the selectors as well as for Misbah and Whatmore How much Umar Akmal has contributed in the whole series? how many chances will he further drop to get dropped himself? People can rave about Shahzad, Maqsood and Hafeez for their recent performances but none of them is capable of performing against tougher bowling sides and on challenging tracks so for WC 2015, it will be a suicide to build your team around these players or Umar Akmal as all of them are flashy stroke players lacking technique to face quality fast bowling We need Asad, Shafiq, Khurram Manzoor and Fawad Alam in ODI side for WC2015 Bhatti is a good find but he was thrashed to all corners in 4 matches he played so we must not blindly select players based on couple of good performances. Still, Bhatti, Anwar and Hammad Azam should be in ODI squad

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saulauddin

Dec 29, 2013 08:34pm

a lil disappointed with the last game against sri lanka.. but that's been a major problem for Pakistan since a while ..first of all they struggle to win ,secondly if they do manage to win somehow (as it was a lucky escape in first odi against lankans) otherwise series would have been 3-2 in sri lanka's favor.. their main problem is focus n concentration... their young lot gets carried away if they in a comfortable position and as a result complacency causes loss.. still a lot of work to be done ..not entirely sure why misbah is satisfied with the result...it should have been definite 4-1 in pak's favor..poor display . umar gul needs to work on his focus towards his follow up spells as was said by bowling coach md.akram too... Well the good thing was hafeez performance with bat and a great find of duo anwar ali and bilawal bhatti.. one of them has surely got a making of another razzaq or may be even better.

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Bob

Dec 29, 2013 10:06pm

Let's not make this as a regional issue and just do away the favoritism. Start with Hafeez based on his poor performance and also select the better performing players such as Anwar Ali and others mentioned in the comments by @Skhan. If we get rid of wrong people from commentary box then better feedback will lead to better selection. Rameez R. and Waqar Y. should avoid doing the job of selection committee. I expect better sense from Waqar where as the RR is a loud mouth and just pure embarrassment. Pakistan can produce better than that.

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