Misbah-ul-Haq Reveals That Pakistan Team Management Ignored His Advice Before World Cup

Former Pakistan skipper, Misbah-ul-Haq has revealed that his advice was ignored by the Pakistan team management when he advised to have an extra spinner and find a like-for-like replacement for Naseem Shah. Misbah-ul-Haq blamed the out-of-form spin bowling as the main factor for Pakistan’s exit from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023.

Pakistan spinners Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz have had a terrible outing in the World Cup. They combined took only four wickets in the whole World Cup. Indian pitches are known to help spinners but somehow it was not suiting this Pakistan spin-duo.

Misbah stated, “I think spin bowling was the biggest issue if your spin-bowling is out of form then you should find a solution to that. Even in the Asia Cup, the kind of form Shadab had then the kind of form Nawaz had, so the way you’re going you should have kept an extra spinner.”

Misbah-ul-Haq further went to talk about how he advised the team to get a good replacement for Naseem Shah who was injured during the Asia Cup and was ruled out of the World Cup. He added, “In batting, the extra middle-order batter will play when one of your main batters is unavailable. Then it was the bowling obviously it was out of form, even fast bowling, we have to look into that as well. If Naseem Shah was injured then who would’ve been the right replacement for him, we should think about that.”

Watch- Misbah-ul-Haq Stating His Advice To Pakistan Team Before The World Cup

Former captain #MisbahUlHaq opens up about the advice he gave to the team management, including captain #Babar Azam before the ICC World Cup 2023.#ASportsHD #ARYZAP #CWC23 #ThePavilion #WasimAkram #ShoaibMalik #MoinKhan #FakhreAlam #MisbahulHaq #AUSvBAN #PAKvsENG pic.twitter.com/ojJ3JaMtfj

— ASports (@asportstvpk) November 11, 2023

Misbah-ul-Haq concluded by saying that Pakistan Team management was not in favor of his advice and wanted to continue with the team they had been preparing for the past year. However, Pakistan didn’t perform to their own expectations and eventually got eliminated from the semi-final race.

“I will say that spin bowling was the factor that affected our performance the most. The team management, coach, captain, everyone was reluctant to my advice stating that they had been going with this team for the past year but eventually, it didn’t click in the World Cup,” Misbah concluded.

Pakistan is just mathematically there in the race of semi-finals but since England has chosen to bat first and is nearing a total of 300, it is impossible for Pakistan to chase that target in 2.4 overs. Therefore, Pakistan can say goodbye to their semi-final hopes which were already starting to fade after Sri Lanka was handed a defeat by New Zealand.