MisbahHaq: Short summary of retiring captain life history
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KARACHI: Misbah-ul-Haq defied critics and his advancing age to take Pakistan from the depths of a major spot-fixing scandal to the world’s number one Test team, becoming their most successful captain along the way.
The 42-year-old, who will retire at the end of the West Indies Test series starting Friday, completed Pakistan’s climb to the top of the rankings with a hard-fought draw in England in 2016, exorcising the ghosts of the tainted visit six years earlier.
Derided for his cautious batting in the semi-final loss to India in the 2011 World Cup, and forced to retire early from the Twenty20 format, a more sensitive soul may have retreated into early retirement.
Not so for Misbah, who started out in street cricket, weathered early trials and disappointments and has survived to become the oldest current Test player.
Born in the city of Mianwali in the central province of Punjab, he was advised by his father, a disgruntled ex-hockey star, to put aside thoughts of being a sportsman and pursue his studies.
His father’s untimely death briefly changed young Misbah’s priorities, and he reluctantly agreed to a job at a textiles company — but never showed up for work.
“It was a tough decision,” Misbah recalled to AFP. “I had to fight with circumstances and finally made my mark in cricket grounds.”
In order to overcome a lack of opportunities in his hometown, he regularly commuted by train to bigger cities where he laid the foundations of his career, first in street tournaments featuring tennis balls bound in electric tape, and later at domestic level.