Misbah-ul-Haq blames batsmen after losing the final ODI

Misbah-ul-Haq, the Pakistan captain, is extremely disappointed after losing the last encounter of the five-match One Day International (ODI) series against South Africa at Benoni and blames a poor batting display for the team’s downfall.

The two teams fought hard in the ODI series and entered the last fixture with everything to play for. Misbah won the toss and opted to bat first on a track which was expected to slow down with the passage of time.

Pakistan lost Mohammad Hafeez early in the innings but Kamran Akmal, with a timely 48, consolidated the innings for the tourists. However, wickets kept tumbling at regular intervals, with no top-order batsman converting his start into a big knock. As a result, the Green Shirts were bowled out in the final over of the innings for 205 runs.

South Africa chased down the total in 44 overs for the loss of only four wickets, thanks to a stunning 95 by AB de Villiers.

Akmal, Younis Khan, Misbah and Shoaib Malik threw away their wickets after impressive starts, which in the skipper’s opinion, led to the team’s downfall. Misbah feels that his side should have posted more than 250 runs on the board.

“That’s the one area which really let us down,” Misbah said. “When you look at the scorecard, everybody got starts like 20s or 30s but no-one converted and made that into 70s or 80s. If the six main batsmen keep doing that, the team can’t do well. The way we started, we felt 250 would have been a good total but the shot selection was not good and there were a lot of irresponsible shots. We can only blame ourselves. The way we batted was unacceptable.”

While talking about the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy 2013 in England, the Pakistan captain hinted at making certain changes in the team combination.

He added, “We will have to go and look at conditions, which teams we are going to play, all of those things and then see what we need for the future.”

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Posted by Yasir Hashmi on Mar 26 2013. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.