Former Pakistan batter Misbah-ul-Haq has admitted he got ‘overconfident’ in the 2007 T20 World Cup final against India and attempted the scoop shot in search of the glory. It was an iconic moment in the Indian cricket history when Misbah mistimed the scoop shot on Joginder Sharma’s delivery in the final over as Sreesanth grabbed the catch at short fine leg to defeat arch-rivals Pakistan in the summit clash of inaugural T20 WC. Misbah was in fine touch in the big-ticket finale and was batting on 43 when he attempted the scoop shot on the third ball of the final over and the rest was history.
Recently, in a conversation with former teammates Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Yousuf, Misbah opened up on his team’s defeats to India in the 2007 T20 WC final and 2011 ODI WC semifinal.
The former Pakistan batter admitted that he missed the shot on which he has the most confidence at that time.
“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.”
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Misbah further talked about the 2011 ODI WC semifinal and said it was tough to score runs with the old ball on the Mohali track and even India struggled after a quick start.
“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 man of the match. India were struggling after that start,” Misbah said.
The 47-year-old said he didn’t get much support from the other end in the final 10 overs of the game otherwise Pakistan would have easily chased down the target.
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“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.
“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 powerplay and I got to play only 2 overs. We lost the game by 20-22 runs and I didn’t play three overs of powerplay at all. There was no batsman at the other end.”
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