‘Mistimed the shot on which I had the most confidence’ – Misbah-ul-Haq recalls 2007 T20 WC loss against India
Misbah Ul Haq (Misbah Ul Haq (Photo by ARIF ALI/AFP via Getty Images))
Former Pakistan skipper Misbah Ul Haq has said that he mistimed the shot on which he had the most confidence, while reminiscing how he played against India in the final of the T20 World Cup 2007. The shot resulted in his fall and his team lost the game by five runs.
In the final over, the Men In Green needed 13 runs to win the World Cup with only one wicket in hand. Misbah was batting alongside Mohammad Asif. The right-hander hit a six against Joginder Sharma to bring the equation down to six runs needed off three balls. At this moment, he decided to play the scoop as Sreesanth was inside the circle at the fine leg position.
He mistimed the shot and the catch was taken by Sreesanth, which meant the MS Dhoni-led side became the inaugural champions. Meanwhile, in a conversation with Shoaib Akhtar on his YouTube channel, he said that he had played the same shot throughout the tournament.
“In 2007, I always say that throughout every game, I scored so many fours playing that shot. Even with the fine leg in place, I was taking singles while playing that shot against Australia. Against spinners, I used to beat fine leg with that shot. So, you can say I got overconfident. I mistimed the shot on which I had the most confidence.”
If we had wickets in hand, we could chased down the target: Misbah Ul Haq
The former skipper also spoke about the 2011 World Cup semi-final game against India. The oldest centurion at Lords said that if the team had wickets in hand during the batting powerplay, they could have chased down the target.
“Throughout the World Cup, we were scoring heavily in the batting powerplay towards the end. The thought was that even if we needed 100 runs in the final 10 overs, we had a batting powerplay of five overs. If we had wickets in hand, we could’ve easily chased it down. I was standing alone in the final five overs of powerplay and I got to play only 2 overs. We lost the game by 20-22 runs and I didn’t play three overs of powerplay at all. There was no batsman at the other end.”
