MISBAH-UL-HAQ, Pakistan’s most successful captain to-date, fought two battles simultaneously during his career, one on the field and the other with his critics. It is to his credit, though, that he emerged a winner in both of them.

A very fit man, even at the ripe old cricketing age of 42 years 355 days, he is still on top of his game and could easily have prolonged his career, his top aggregate of 271 runs in the three-Test series against the West Indies being a testament to this.

No one in the right mind would have liked to be in Misbah’s shoes when he took over the reins of Pakistan team in 2010. The nasty spot-fixing scandal at Lord’s had rocked the national team and the entire cricketing world was heaping dirt on the greenshirts whose morale was at the lowest ebb.

Just how well this Mianwali-born right-hander steered the ship and brought it ashore is now history. And yet, for some odd reason, his critics loved to vilify him, match after match and series after series. Some dubbed him ‘Mr Tuk Tuk, some called him a defensive captain and some accused him of favouring certain players.

However, calm and tenacious Misbah chose not to retaliate. Quietly and solidly, he went about his task, earning laurel after laurel for his country and for his team and, in the process, overtaking each and every captain in the annals of Pakistan cricket including the legendary Imran Khan by registering the highest number of victories for the nation.

Misbah’s greatness, besides his achievements, lie in the struggle he made despite the heavy odds. After making his Test debut in 2001 against New Zealand, Misbah spent nearly six years in the wilderness until he was again noticed for his fine performance in the 2007 World T20. Between those years, Misbah worked tremendously hard on his game, remained focussed and determined to make a comeback to the national team and discreetly avoided the controversies.

It was during that period that Misbah emerged a real battle-hardened man, conquering every frontier to finally arrive at his destination and revive his career at a point where ordinary mortals would have quit the game. It is no secret that though he came very close to getting selected in the national team on the dint of his impressive performances with the bat, he was not given his due mainly for the presence of strong batting icons like Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf and a few others in the side who not only occupied the middle-order spots at the time but were also a tad insecure about a competent player like Misbah snatching them at some point.

But once Misbah regained his place in the team in 2010, he never looked back, stamping his authority as a fine skipper and a very mature, consistent batsman. He not only took the team to the number one spot in the ICC rankings but scored at a brilliant average of nearly 50 as a batsman.

Here, one would like to mention a few facts about Misbah’s career that would make his critics review their opinion about him. In nearly 75 per cent of the international matches that he played for the country, he came in to bat when Pakistan was facing a top order collapse or was reeling under a batting crisis. Almost on all such occasions, Misbah stemmed the rot with a patient, gutsy knock that in the end gave some respectability to the score.

However, when he rarely stepped in at a healthy team position, he blasted his way to some brisk knocks including that fastest hundred against Australia in the UAE that equalled Sir Vivian Richards’ record.

After experiencing a rare bad patch with the bat on the twin tours of New Zealand and Australia last year, Misbah decided to go back to the basics and played half a dozen Grade II games to regain his form. There’s hardly an example of this kind in our domestic cricket when a top player relegates himself like this to regain his form in a bid to serve his country and his team to the best of his ability.

The result of that effort from Misbah is for everyone to see. He scored 271 runs in the three Tests against the West Indies with an excellent average of 67.75.

Azhar Ali was ten runs behind his captain in aggregate. Among the other batsmen, Sarfraz Ahmed managed 141 in the rubber, Babar Azam (136), Younis Khan (122) and Ahmed Shehzad (121), all well below Misbah.

Like Test cricket, Misbah was also the top scorer for Pakistan in the One-day World Cup-2015 after which he retired from that format of the game. He had scored 350 runs for Pakistan in the mega event.

Earlier, when Misbah was forced to step down from the T20 captaincy despite doing a good job in the format, he had a fine batting and captaincy record but relinquished the mantle to Mohammad Hafeez in 2013.

In short, Misbah was perhaps the only player who left all three formats at the high points of his career.

Misbah will be returning home in the small hours on Wednesday and will be accorded a warm welcome by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) at the Allama Iqbal Airport. He will bring back with him the honour of being the only captain ever from Pakistan to win a series against the West Indies, that too in their own backyard. Though the PCB has made it clear that it is keen on giving a handsome send off to Misbah and batting icon Younis and honour their services in the best possible manner, it is not yet known whether the PCB have any role for Misbah in mind in its set-up.

However, the PCB will be well advised to engage the services of a wise, experienced man like Misbah if they want Pakistan cricket to rise and shine in the world of cricket.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2017