Misbah blames batting for World Cup exit

Joy Chakravarty 04:58 21/03/2015
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  • Frustrated: Misbah said it was tough to defend a low total on a good pitch.

    Captain Misbah-ul Haq picked the failure of Pakistani batting, not just in the quarter-final against Australia yesterday but throughout the tournament, as the biggest disappointment in the 2015 World Cup.

    At Adelaide Oval, on a good batting pitch and after winning the toss and making first use of it, Pakistan were skittled out for 213 despite several of their batsmen getting starts.

    And the man who brought down the curtain on his international ODI career, said: “Actually, we just lost the way in the middle overs. I mean, we were really going well at one stage, but after 20, 23 overs, we suddenly lost wickets, and that’s been the trend throughout the tournament.

    “We were getting starts but we were not converting that into bigger scores, and when six batsmen do that, it’s really difficult for your bowling line-up to defend totals like that every day, especially on batting pitches like we were playing today. We need to learn from this.

    “We only had one hundred throughout the tournament, and this is not how you win a World Cup. You need batsmen who can score hundreds, and I think as a batting unit, we failed to do that.”

    Misbah said the dropped catch of Shane Watson by Rahat Ali was the turning point of the match and was full of praise for the effort of pace bowler Wahab Riaz, whose ferocious pace had the Australian batsmen ducking for cover.

    “He bowled his heart out and was a different bowler in this tournament,” said Misbah. “I have never seen a bowler bowling like that and if that catch had been taken, who knows what could have happened?

    “Nobody in this world is very good against a bowler who is bowling at 150kmph. Today, he showed his class again.” 

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