Former Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq admitted that it might have been little overconfidence of him that cost Pakistan the T20 World Cup.
In the final of the T20 World Cup 2007, Pakistan needed 6 runs off 4 balls when Misbah sit on one knee to scoop the ball over fine leg against the bowling of Joginder Sharma, but the ball ballooned up in the air and it landed in the hands of Sreesanth and India led by MS Dhoni became the champions of the inaugural edition.
Misbah-ul-Haq scored 38-ball 43 in the final of the T20 World Cup in 2007
14 years later, Misbah recalled the memories of the match in a conversation with Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Yousuf. Misbah stated that he collected lots of runs with that shot throughout the tournament but couldn’t execute it properly on that occasion.
“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,” he added.
Misbah also talked about his other famous innings 56(76) against India in the semifinal of the ODI World Cup for which he received lots of flak for batting too slowly. He said that he was planning to go big in the powerplay but the other batsmen couldn’t give him a strike back.
“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 the 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.” he added.
He revealed Pakistan’s strategy to go big in the powerplay in that tournament but in the semifinal match they kept losing wickets at the regular interval and lower order batsmen couldn’t give him a strike back in the powerplay.
“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 the powerplay and I got to play only 2 overs. We lost the game by 20-22 runs (29 runs) and I didn’t play three overs of powerplay at all. There was no batsman at the other end.” he said.
India eventually won the tournament by beating Sri Lanka in the final in Mumbai.