PAK vs SL | Series loss against Sri Lanka is an eye opener, says Misbah-ul-Haq
Pakistan faced ultimate humiliation at home as the No. 1 T20 side in the world lost the three-match T20 series to a second-string Sri Lanka team which is ranked 8 in the ICC T20 rankings. Sri Lanka handed Pakistan a 35-run defeat in Lahore to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series.
With this defeat, Pakistan registered their sixth defeat out of the seven T20Is they played this year and all of head coach Misbah-ul-Haq’s disappointment came out at the post-match press conference.
"Losing is never good, especially against a team that is without their major players, and it's an eye-opener. We can see deficiencies in every department: bowling, batting and particularly the way we got out against spin, and also our death bowling,” Misbah was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.
"There was a clear difference between the two teams. Despite being inexperienced, they were disciplined and did everything right, while we completely failed to implement our plan," he added.
The inclusion of Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad didn’t quite pay off for Pakistan in the series. While Shehzad was able to muster only 16 runs in two matches, Akmal bagged two consecutive golden ducks, which took his tally of ducks to ten, the joint-most by any batsman in T20Is. But Misbah seems to have faith in them and believed that they deserved their opportunity after their domestic exploits.
"Both these players have performed well wherever they've played in the last one year. Ahmed's performance in PSL was remarkable enough for a chance, while Umar, whichever format he played, was among the good ones," he said. "It's unfortunate in our circuit, there is no other batsman in T20s who had performed better than them. Players who have performed in domestic surely deserve a chance, and that's why we offered them,” said the former Pakistan captain.
"If they weren't able to perform what can be done? Obviously, I am answerable, but to build up a team you need to do some experiments to get the answers. When you play someone in international cricket with a couple of games, you understand the utility of a player. We need to show some patience and wait for the next series to find answers," he added.
Clearly, head coach Misbah is trying to get a balanced combination for the upcoming T20 World Cup in Australia, as are the other teams, and these recent failures are part of the experiments. But Misbah seemed to have enough as he asked his middle order to produce runs and be less dependent on the No.1 T20 batsman Babar Azam, while also demanding his bowlers to strike early for the team. Misbah seemed clear on what should be done to get things in place for Pakistan quickly.
"There are a lot of reasons for this experimentation. Yes, we are the No. 1 team in the world but mostly our strength has been standing on Babar scoring runs and with him not scoring in two games, we are exposed badly," he pointed out.
"We need to find out six or more match-winners, we need to have more dependable batsmen, we need powerhouses in the top and middle, and in bowling, we need to take wickets up front and in the death overs and we need to have good finishers.
"But we failed overall, we are struggling in every department, and it's a big eye-opener for us. We didn't play to our strengths and couldn't deliver. We are looking for more batsmen rather than just relying on one or two.” he concluded.
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