After drawing second test match of the series against New Zealand, Pakistan has won their first Test Cricket series after a gap of 11 Test Series spanned over a period of 4 years and 2 months. Bari der ki mehraan aate aate!
But I have a comment on today’s match. Can you imagine Pakistan going for a draw under Imran Khan from a position where 66 runs were needed off 11 overs (NZ actually end up bowling 14 overs) and 6 wickets were in hand.
Imran would have gone for a match result in such situations whereas Misbah chose the safe result of a draw today. Pakistan scored only 18 runs in the last 14 overs. It will definitely look good on Misbah’s resume’ and he may even get World Cup captaincy over from Shahid Afridi tomorrow.
Now I do want to give credit where its due. Misbah is still commendable to have scored 6 fifites in his last 6 innings (70*, 99, 62, 58*, 77 and 76*). Misbah and Younis Khan held the whole batting line together in this test match.
Pakistan’s last Test series win was against West Indies in December of 2006. Following is the summary of Test series results since Pakistan won it the last time.
(1) 2010-11 Pakistan v New Zealand in NZ (1-0) (Jan 19, 2011)
(2) 2010-11 Pakistan v South Africa in UAE (0-0)
(3) 2010 Pakistan v England in England (1-3)
(4) 2010 Pakistan v Australia in England (1-1)
(5) 2009-10 Pakistan v Australia in Australia (0-3)
(6) 2009-10 Pakistan v New Zealand in NZ (1-1)
(7) 2009 Pakistan v Sri Lanka in SL (0-2)
(8) 2008 Pakistan v Sri Lanka in Pakistan (0-0)
(9) 2007-08 Pakistan v India in India (0-1)
(10) 2007-08 Pakistan v South Africa in Pakistan (0-1)
(11) 2006-07 Pakistan v South Africa in South Africa (1-2)
(12) 2006-07 Pakistan v West Indies in Pakistan (2-0) (Dec 1, 2006)
At one stage when Asad hit a six and a four in one over our captain went and spoke to Asad and calmed him down.
Owais
I completely agree with you. When there were 20 odd overs left, Misbah should have asked Asad to go hard on the ball and risk his wicket. Depending on how many runs he had made before getting out would have influenced the decision when Adnan came out to play. If they still had 80 or 90 runs after Asad’s wicket then just go defensive. If Asad had managed to get 30 or 40 in next 5 to 6 overs and even lost his wicket, it would have changed the course of the game. What do you think?
I read today that this is after 7 years that Pak has won an overseas Test Series.
yaar so far not a single commentor seems to agree with me that Pk should have gone on a bit aggressive and should’ve gone for the win in this test all the way to the end. aap ka faisla sar aankhon par :) I can be wrong in my judgement.
As much as I wanted Misbah to go for a win (I watched most of the fifth day in this anticipation), I admit that he made the right choice.
I think the plan was to play for a win to begin with, but draw if it gets to Misbah and Younus too early, which it did.