Reluctance of some senior players has disturbed Misbah, says PCB source

The former Pakistan skipper and current head coach Misbah ul-Haq had a rather disappointing start to his coaching career as they were whitewashed by a second-string Sri Lanka team at home in the T20 series. The head coach was disappointed with the way the top-ranked team of the format struggled against a bottom team like Sri Lanka and was very vocal about it in the press conferences. 

“What has disturbed Misbah the most in his first assignment as head coach and the chief selector is the reluctance of some players to follow directions of the management and do proper training to keep high fitness standards. He is unhappy that some players are just too relaxed and take training lightly and are not working on improving their cricket discipline. He has also not been encouraged by the attitude of captain, Sarfaraz Ahmed whom he feels shies away from taking responsibility when the chips are down," a source was quoted as saying, reported Scroll.

"Several times he felt they were making excuses to shy away from training and proper nets. He got the feeling they had some sort of excuse ready to go easy on their training. Batsman, Haris Sohail has developed a painful habit of making excuses for having some niggling problem or pain when asked to push himself in training. Another problem which confronts Misbah is that most of the players don’t appear to have the cricket discipline to follow and execute plans on the field which are discussed in the dressing room," another source told PTI according to the report.

Having faced such troubles from the senior players, it won't be a surprise if chief selector Misbah turns to the youngsters in the upcoming Australian series. According to a source, Misbah has the youngsters Zahid Mehmood, a leggie, and Naseem Shah, a pacer, under his radar for the upcoming series. Given the series of events, it will be interesting to see if Misbah backs skipper Sarfaraz Khan to continue as the leader of the pack in the upcoming board meeting next week.