Pakistan need to wake up after humiliating Harare loss

Misbah ul-Haq (R)

No need to apologize, Moin Khan says of Pakistan’s performance.

Nothing wrong with Misbah’s captaincy, PCB Chief says.

Najam Sethi shrugs of Harare Humiliation.

Those are the headlines that have appeared in Dawn, Pakistan’s premier newspaper, over the past few days following the defeat at the hands of Zimbabwe in the second Test.What message are Pakistan’s chairman of the cricket board and the manager of the cricket team sending out to the public?How can Moin Khan be unapologetic in a humiliating defeat? He needs to wake up and realize that it wasn’t a loss to a South Africa or India or Australia, even though the latter will also be a humiliation these days. Pakistan, who were among the top 4 Test teams before the series began, lost to a team that was unranked before the start of the series!

How can you not be apologetic?

How can Sethi shrug off the defeat and say that nothing is wrong with the captaincy? How can the chairman not hold the captain, coach, manager, and players accountable for the defeat? Why is the chairman or the other members of the board not questioning the players and support staff?

Is anyone even bothering to try and figure out cause of this embarrassing defeat?

A mediocre team is the result of our mediocre captain.

Yes, I know Misbah is the best batsman we have and that he is the only one who scores, but that doesn’t mean that he is not mediocre himself. Scoring a ton of 50s and standing at the crease for umpteen hours does not make one a great player.

Misbah’s inability to convert his 50s into big centuries, his inability to push the scoring rate, his inability to close games makes him mediocre.

And that makes his team mediocre.

Why aren’t any of these people taking this defeat seriously?

Betfair.com and every single forum had termed Pakistan favorites to win both the Tests against Zimbabwe. No one would have imagined a troubled team to topple one of the top four teams in Test cricket. Yet, Pakistan folded abysmally.

Zimbabwe should be given credit, but that does not mean that the Pakistan cricket set-up should be snoozing.

Moin Khan should have said: “We apologize to the Pakistani fans for letting them down”.

Najam Sethi should have said: “It was an embarrassing defeat and we will look into it”.

Wake up Pakistan, don’t take this lightly!