“Oh he should have retired on a high note,” say most of the so-called experts after Pakistan beat England again to win the series 2-0. People retire for a reason and that reason is never being too awesome and fit to play. They quit either due to their personal reasons or because they lose their form and don’t want to become a burden on the team.
None of this relates to Misbah-ul-Haq. He is super fit, he is super awesome and he is a winner. No wonder he is the most successful test captain of Pakistan even surpassing the legendary Imran Khan.
In his 61 test matches, Misbah has scored 4352 runs at an average of 48.89 per match while scoring 9 centuries.
His best score is 161* against Pakistan’s arch rivals India when Pakistan toured India back in 2007. Though Pakistan lost the three-match test series 0-1, Misbah played phenomenally well and scored at an average of 116 runs.
He assumed the captaincy at a time when the team was struggling to fight the spot-fixing charges as three of its players were caught taking money in a sting operation. The team was highly demoralized.
Additionally, he had become the 4th captain to lead the team in 2010 alone. Not only that, he had just been called into the team after he was dropped from all three formats earlier that year.
Without a doubt, there must have been a lot of pressure on him. However, Misbah fought all the odds and captained such a demoralized team to be the 2nd best test team in the ICC ranking today.
The most striking thing about his 15 year-long career is that from 2001 till 2010 he played 19 test matches and scored 1008 runs at an average of just 33.60.
Since 2010 when he was named Captain, he’s played 42 matches and scored 3344 runs at an impressive average of 56.67.
During these 42 matches as a captain, he won 20 of them, 11 were drawn and 11 lost.
The legendary Imran Khan during his career captained Pakistan in 48 matches in which 14 were won, 26 drawn and 8 lost.
Now let’s get back to the question whether Misbah should retire or not and if yes then when.
Well they say, he is 41 years old. True, but that’s just it. Other than that, there is no problem with him neither with his form nor his captaincy.
Yes he has to retire someday. But, if there is anyone who can pick the best time for Misbah’s retirement, it’s he himself. And those who say Misbah should have left on a high note, should not forget that Misbah’s career is too good to be affected by one or two loses.