Although Pakistan managed to comfortably lose the third ODI in the end, an irate Misbah-ul-Haq has filed a complaint with the ICC against Team India for posting a paltry score of 167, which made it exceedingly difficult for his batsmen not to chase down.
“Before the second innings, the boys appeared downcast,” recalled Misbah, “saying it’s going to be very difficult to lose this match. I told them that we have nothing to win and could still pull off an incredible defeat from the jaws of victory if we applied ourselves to the task on hand.”
Misbah led from the front with a dour and unintelligent captain’s knock, scoring 39 off 82 balls, which laid the foundation for the subsequent batting implosion. The Pakistani skipper attributed the magnificent defeat to the batsmen, singling out the tail-enders for letting the pressure get to them. “Young Junaid showed maturity far beyond his years by getting run out at a crucial moment. He’s a lad to watch out for.”
Admitting that it was difficult to lose matches with such a strong bowling attack, Misbah pleaded for patience. “The boys are relatively inexperienced. Please give them time to settle down and hopefully we’ll become more inconsistent and throw, I mean, lose matches going forward,” he observed before concluding the press interaction on a positive note by saying “the defeat was a much needed morale booster after a string of pointless victories”.
In related news, Arvind Kejriwal threw a bombshell, claiming he would be exposing the entire Pakistan Team for match-fixing at Jantar Mantar tomorrow. “I have solid evidence in the form of ball-by-ball Cricinfo commentary from the 3rd ODI to back my claim,” said the anti corruption crusader.
(Based on this tweet by Laughing Gas)