Misbah-ul-Haq recollects his scoop shot from the 2007 World T20 final

Pakistan Test skipper Misbah-ul-Haq will surely go down as one of the Pakistan greats for his long successful career across formats in international cricket. Recently, Misbah led his side to No.1 ranking in Test cricket. However, something he will regret is missing out on the chance of being the hero for his country by winning the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007.

With Pakistan needing 6 runs from 4 balls in the final against India, Misbah’s scoop shot found S Sreesanth at short fine-leg, as the Men in Blue trump the title. After almost a decade, he recollects his memories about the T20 World Cup and the scoop shot.

Speaking about the shot, he said that the scoop shot is not something new to him as he had successfully used it several times before. “I think it is that kind of shot which I used to play mostly during my tape ball days. That used to be my pet shot,” Misbah said. “The moment I knew that there is nothing I can do, I used to go for that shot and never missed. During the World T20, I don’t know how many boundaries I scored with that execution and before that as well.”

“It was like, whenever I was in such situation of the last wicket with five runs needed, I always thought of going to level the score with a boundary first,” he added.

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Rather than the shot selection, he feels that the execution was the one, which went wrong for him. “Sometimes your execution can go wrong and at times your strength becomes your weakness. You know that when you play such ramp shot, one has to pick the delivery as early so that it goes far. I did totally opposite of that as I played that very close to the body and the ball went up in the air.  There was enough amount of time for a fielder to get under it and grab the catch,” explains the 42-year-old.

Joginder Sharma was the bowler, who bowled the final over with his gentle medium pacers. Speaking about the third delivery of the over, he said his actual plan was to scoop it over the wicket-keeper’s head as MS Dhoni was standing very close to him.

“Dhoni was standing very close to me and my plan was to hit that ball above the keeper. There was not much pace and I knew that. I knew that If I go for a straight shot then there was a chance of miss hit and most of the fielders were up with extra cover as well because Joginder Sharma didn’t have much pace and I anticipated him to bowl a bit fuller length,” Misbah said.

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The current Test skipper admits that he regrets opting for the shot but is not keen on looking into the past. “Yes there was regret, but I think very soon I wiped it from my mind by thinking that it’s a past now and in order to move forward, I have to stop thinking about it,” he concluded.