Misbah leads Pakistan through the calm after the storm
"Until recently, I've not known what to make of Misbah-ul-Haq," writes Osman Samiuddin in the National
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
"Until recently, I've not known what to make of Misbah-ul-Haq," writes Osman Samiuddin in the National. "We're never sure how history will judge someone until they are done, but over the course of a career or life you can make out a tilt in one direction. With Misbah, whose batting provides no clue - sharp and attuned one day, lethargic and disoriented the next - I've just not been able to decide."
You see, Misbah's real misfortune is that his rise to captain has coincided with the age of Shahid Afridi, a vibrant, expressive media-savvy charmer and a man of such colour it blinds you to what is really inside. Afridi has also led successfully in this time and he remains a people's captain, the anti-establishment rouser to Misbah's system lackey. Much of Pakistan embraces Afridi's irrationality without understanding what he is, and more after each ball bite, each pitch-spiking, each retirement and subsequent unretirement, each public spat.
Misbah, by contrast, is pheeka, or bland. To triumph or defeat, to boundary or dismissal, he gives no reaction and how can you love no emotion, no jazba (passion)? The one revealing image I recall is his sunken head, on his knees leaning against his bat, just after the shot that ended the 2007 World Twenty20 final. You cannot even see his face. So when Afridi agitated against Younis Khan's captaincy, people got over it. But when Misbah was part of a similar movement? Not forgotten.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo