What’s the toughest job in sport? Managing the Brazil or England football team or coaching England’s cricket squad, for that matter?
For Pakistan’s Misbah-ul-Haq, the answer is simple — it’s his position as captain of a team already dubbed “predictably unpredictable” by a rival coach at the World Cup.
As well as two heavy defeats in their opening games in Australia and New Zealand, eight Pakistan players were fined for breaking a curfew, there were claims of a training ground bust-up while chief selector Moin Khan was sent home for visiting a Christchurch casino.
Then there are the team’s millions of demanding fans back home.
Frustrated by the absence of international cricket in the country because of the 2009 attack on the touring Sri Lanka team, and then embarrassed by the jailing in England of three players for corruption in 2011, the captain is the punchbag of the Pakistan team.
“We needed solutions rather than leaving things unresolved and making them more complicated. My cool nature helped me otherwise it was tough to survive just for two days.”
Apart from Misbah’s captaincy style, his slow batting in one-dayers once earned him the mocking nickname of “tuk-tuk” — (the Urdu phrase for the sound made when the ball comes off the bat when a defensive stroke is played).
“I needed to stay at the wicket so I didn’t play to my strengths. Whenever I went in to bat the team was under pressure,” said Misbah.
The perception of Misbah as a pragmatic batsman was shattered with his 56-ball hundred in a Test against Australia in October — equalling the record for the fastest hundred.
