The inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup in 2007 saw a dramatic finish as India lifted the title, beating arch-rivals Pakistan by five runs. Pakistan’s Misbah-ul-Haq handed an easy catch to Sreesanth after mistiming a scoop shot against Joginder Sharma as a young Indian side, led by MS Dhoni, wrote history in South Africa.
Over 14 years later, Misbah admitted that he might have been “overconfident” in attempting the scoop shot. In a conversation with former Pakistan teammates Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Yousuf, Misbah spoke in detail about the side’s losses to India in the T20 World Cup final (2007) and the ODI World Cup semi-final (2011).
“In 2007, I always say that throughout every game, I scored so many fours playing that shot. Even with the fine leg in place, I was taking singles while playing that shot against Australia. Against spinners, I used to beat fine leg with that shot,” Misbah said.
“So, you can say I got overconfident. I mistimed the shot on which I had the most confidence.”
Talking about the semi-final against India in Mohali in the 2011 World Cup, Misbah said that the side had planned a late burst in the run-chase through the batting powerplay in the final five overs of the innings; however, he didn’t get enough strike to make a difference.
“In 2011, on that Mohali pitch, India had scored 44 (39/0) in 4 overs. When the ball got older, it started to reverse, it started gripping and runs were harder to get. Sachin scored 80-something (85) and he was man of the match. India were struggling after that start,” Misbah said.
“Even we had put around 80 runs in the first 15 overs, losing only one wicket. In the next few overs, we hardly scored runs and lost three wickets. There was Yuvraj at one end, Harbhajan at the other, and then fast bowlers also came in. Singles were the most difficult. Either you hit it out or try and grind in.
“Throughout the World Cup, we were scoring heavily in the batting powerplay towards the end. The thought was that even if we needed 100 runs in the final 10 overs, we had a batting powerplay of five overs. If we had wickets in hand, we could’ve easily chased it down. I was standing alone in the final five overs of powerplay and I got to play only 2 overs. We lost the game by 20-22 runs and I didn’t play three overs of powerplay at all. There was no batsman at the other end.”
