Happy That Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez’s Experience Helped Us: Misbah-ul-Haq

Pakistan coach and chief selector Misbah-ul-Haq said he was pleased with the way Pakistan’s experienced players gelled with the young, new-look T20I side after they sealed the three-match series against Bangladesh.

Pakistan recalled veterans Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez for the series and the move paid dividends as they had already sealed the series after the second T20I and were going for a whitewash but the final T20I at Lahore was washed out without a ball being bowled.

“After two series, we have realised that we cannot go all out with youngsters and we need experience. So, obviously Babar did back them (Malik and Hafeez) and, as expected, their experience did work for us,” Misbah said after the match.

“The doors are never shut. If any player who is fit, performing and required, he should definitely be considered. If their form is helping your team, then I don’t see any problem in picking them.

“Whenever both seniors weren’t there in the team, questions were asked of me. I never really talked about ending someone’s career or why we are not considering them. But, sometimes you do look around and check your resources and do experiment to see where you stand.”

The series win comes as a relief to the Pakistan side, who had lost back-to-back T20I series before this one – they lost 3-0 to a second-string Sri Lankan side at home before losing the T20I series away to Australia 2-0.

Additionally they had won just one of their last nine T20Is and Misbah said that winning this series gave them some ‘breathing space’.

“The most important thing for us was to win. This victory was important for us to get breathing space and now you obviously have to see where you are lacking and which area you can strengthen yourself. Otherwise being under pressure, you are always running after many things and sometimes it’s really hard to catch up.

“It’s good for me, for the team, for all youngsters that we are relaxed and got a little confidence-booster. Now we can focus better going forward. Because when you lose back-to-back series and even before we had a poor run losing T20 games, so it was really important for our confidence to win.

“Obviously, credit should be given to our bowling, the way our young bowlers never gave Bangladesh a chance to sneak in to get into a position to pose any threat.”