Misbah — the man we learned to love

“Tails,” shouted Misbah, when the coin was tossed up in the air. Tails it was, making Misbah only the second Pakistani captain ever to win seven consecutive tosses.

As he came forward with a beaming smile on a refreshingly sunny London day at Lord’s, perhaps in hindsight we should have known it was to be the 42-year-old’s day.

Just 27.4 overs later, with the second session still in its infancy, Misbah found himself out in the middle with Pakistan in a slight spot of bother at 77-3.

The familiar face of Younus Khan, his partner in crime for years, greeted him out in the middle. England were sensing blood; dismiss either of these two now and they would have a very real chance of getting through Pakistan for less than 200.

The first six balls he played were more or less uneventful. The seventh one, a Stuart Broad in-swinger, came back in late and sharp into Misbah. How he managed to get his bat down in time and save himself from being leg before or bowled no one would ever quite know. But the bat did come down in time, so few would remember that moment; but few would forget what was to come from then on.

England skipper Alastair Cook had rightly pointed out before the game that Misbah makes most of his runs against spinners on dead UAE tracks. He, like many others, was sure his pacers would have the right-hander’s number on swinging and seaming English tracks. He was sure the short-ball would be a problem for the man — as old as Rome itself. He was sure the inswinging deliveries will make him a walking lbw target. He was sure the bounce and movement off the pitch would be too much to handle for Misbah. He was so sure of it all.

It would be much more satisfying to write that Misbah chewed up the English bowlers and spat them out; that he dominated them from start to finish, that he had the answer to whatever they threw at him. But that would not be true.

Instead he fidgeted, he shifted and he jumped around, he missed balls, he edged some; through it all he looked uncomfortable, he looked ungainly and he looked all of his 42 years. England did everything they could do to him, except get him out.

In hindsight, perhaps we should have known it when he won the toss that it was to be his day. Or perhaps when he gloved his first boundary off Broad. Or on any of the plethora of edges that somehow managed to avoid the stationed slip fielders. Or perhaps when he was stranded in the middle after a mix-up with Asad Shafiq but the fielder didn’t hit the stumps.

We, like Cook, missed all those signs and just waited for him to get out. Instead, he scored his eighth Test century as a captain — the most by a Pakistani skipper — and promptly did some push-ups to further rub his fitness in our collective noses.

It would also be satisfying to compare Misbah to a classic year of wine — getting better with time. But Misbah is nothing like good wine. He is neither intoxicating nor is he romantic, and judging by the long hours he spends out in the middle, nor would he be as aromatically pleasing.

Instead, Misbah — old, unfashionable, uncontroversial and often hard to love for a nation that values talent over hard work — was the bitter pill that an ailing Pakistan swallowed all those years ago. That pill has nursed the team back to health almost single-handedly, from a team on the brink to one that managed to take on England at their own game and in their own backyard on a beautiful Lord’s day.

That bitter pill, maybe the best cricketing decision ever taken by Pakistan, now has his name on the honour’s board at the home of cricket; in his very first innings at that.

It was at Lord’s that the events which eventually led to Misbah’s appointment as skipper unfolded. It is fitting then that that Misbah silenced whatever precious few critics of his that remained at the very same ground.

He too, like Mohammad Amir, has come full circle and he has dragged Pakistan — screaming and kicking — along with him. And in doing so, Misbahul Haq has ensured himself a legacy among the very legends of the game. May he never retire.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2016.

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