We were lucky, must improve says Misbah
31 Dec 2012 12:21 AM GMT
Pakistan might have notched up a comfortable six-wicket win over India in the first one-dayer but skipper Misbah-ul-Haq said his team was ‘lucky’ on Sunday and they need to ‘work harder and improve a fair bit’ to tame the hosts in the second match on Thursday.
‘Today we were lucky, India gave us a tough time in this situation. They lost five wickets early but still went on to make 227 and we couldn’t chase it down easily. So I think we have to improve a lot of things. To win the next match, we will have to work hard and improve a fair bit. We have to improve our fielding, our death overs and Power Play bowling,’ Misbah said in the post-match press conference.
Nasir Jamshed was one of the engineers of the victory as he cracked an unbeaten 101 but he lost the man of the match award to India captain MS Dhoni, who scored an unbeaten 113 under difficult conditions. Asked about it, Misbah said, ‘Man of the match is decided by the jury. At one stage, it looked as if India would be getting out for 125 but Dhoni’s was a brilliant innings. Nasir and Younis also batted excellently for us but I will also make a special mention of Azhar. In the first six overs from (Bhuvneshwar) Kumar, the ball was swinging a lot. Seeing off the first 10-12 overs was the base for our victory and after that, Younis showed his experience,’ Misbah said.
‘At that time, we were in a spot. The partnership and upping the run-rate by Jamshed and Malik was the turning point of the game,’ he added.
‘Today we were lucky, India gave us a tough time in this situation. They lost five wickets early but still went on to make 227 and we couldn’t chase it down easily. So I think we have to improve a lot of things. To win the next match, we will have to work hard and improve a fair bit. We have to improve our fielding, our death overs and Power Play bowling,’ Misbah said in the post-match press conference.
Nasir Jamshed was one of the engineers of the victory as he cracked an unbeaten 101 but he lost the man of the match award to India captain MS Dhoni, who scored an unbeaten 113 under difficult conditions. Asked about it, Misbah said, ‘Man of the match is decided by the jury. At one stage, it looked as if India would be getting out for 125 but Dhoni’s was a brilliant innings. Nasir and Younis also batted excellently for us but I will also make a special mention of Azhar. In the first six overs from (Bhuvneshwar) Kumar, the ball was swinging a lot. Seeing off the first 10-12 overs was the base for our victory and after that, Younis showed his experience,’ Misbah said.
‘At that time, we were in a spot. The partnership and upping the run-rate by Jamshed and Malik was the turning point of the game,’ he added.
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