Ten years ago, on September 24, 2007, Indian cricket team roared loud on the South African soil. Under the leadership of newly appointed captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India became the world champion and lifted the first ever T20I World Cup. The men in blue defeated their arch-rivals Pakistan and won the epic encounter by 5 runs.
According to a report by Cricket Country, recently in a famous Pakistani TV show hosted by former cricketer Wasim Akram, former Pakistan skipper Misbah spoke about his scoop shot he played in the 2007 T20I World Cup final against India. Pakistan were chasing a target of 158 runs and Misbah was team’s last hope. He fought till the end and took the game very close. However, his one shot took the victory away from Pakistan and mad India the champions.
Misbah opened up on his shot selection and said,”I mostly played that shot during my tape ball days. That was my pet shot. I never missed that shot earlier. Whenever I knew that there is nothing I can do, I used to for that shot. During the World T20, I don’t know how many boundaries I scored with that execution and before that as well.”
“Whenever I was in a situation of last wicket with five runs needed, I always thought of going to level the score with a boundary first. So, Dhoni was standing very close to me and my plan was to hit that ball above the keeper. The pace was not much and I knew that. If I would have gone 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 was quoted as saying.
“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,” Misbah added.
Misbah also revealed that how disappointed he was after he realised that they have lost the World Cup. he said,”I regretted but 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.”
This is what happened 10 years ago on this day:
Nobody could forget how Joginder Sharma dismissed Misbah-ul-Haq while the entire nation was nervous when Sreesanth was under the ball to take the catch.
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