London: Pakistan skipper Misbah-Ul-Haq, a calm and composed person even under trying circumstances, lost his cool and came down heavily on his batsmen after their defeat to South Africa at Edgbaston on Monday.
To a probing question whether the top order which failed to fire were the best in Pakistan, Haq said without batting an eyelid: “I hope so. When we came here, we thought that they are the best and these guys have been performing for Pakistan.”
To a query as to how difficult it was to see his team’s batting falling apart repeatedly from the middle, Haq said: “It’s really difficult and disappointing. We needed only less than six runs an over and that was very much like a Pakistan pitch. You play time and time over on these sort of pitches. It’s not a match that you could say the wicket was difficult. I think, again, it’s the application which these batsmen were lacking.”
When his attention was drawn towards Shoaib Malek, who despite being a senior player did not quite rise to the challenge, Haq candidly said nobody is justifying their place in the team. “You definitely need to think about this after the tournament is over. I think at the moment, nobody is justifying their place on the team and nobody is getting runs for Pakistan.”
Haq feels that his team’s failure to score even over 170 runs in both the matches is very serious. “Two games on the trot and the team not being able to score 170 is disappointing. It looked like an Asian pitch, we’re used to playing on these pitches and it’s really disappointing.”
To a query whether Mohammad Hafeez should be opening the innings instead of batting one-down, Haq said: “The idea was because when he had got a chance in Sri Lanka he got 50 in the last game and he came to South Africa and played well in the Test match. Then in ODIs, he got 93 against South Africa. We were also having problems at number three, so we decided to just put Hafeez there. It worked in Ireland and in the practice game, but it’s not working at the moment.”
When Haq’s attention was drawn toward his own fans booing the team during the presentation ceremony, he said: “This is a game of cricket. One day it will be congratulations, next day you may be booed. So supporters are like that. I had already said before that this is how things are. When you perform well, everybody appreciates you. When you give these sort of performances, I think they [fans] have the right to do what they did.”
