In Misbah-ul-Haq’s voice, you can still hear the pain of failing to finish out a game against India in Pakistan in the last match of T20 World Cup 2007. As captain, Misbah brought his side to within touching distance of victory, only to fall just short in the end.
On September 24th 2007 at The Wanderers Johannesburg where it was played, Misbah had every confidence that they could chase down India’s score of 157 for five and win this trophy as well.
Gautam Gambhir (75 off 54 balls) and Rohit Sharma (30 off 16 balls) helped India put up a decent total on the board after Umra Gul took three wickets for twenty-eight during Pakistan’s bowling.
“We were very confident because the kind of pitch there was and the kind of (short) boundaries, it was very tough for India because they were dependent on their spin bowling,” said Misbah on Star Sports’ talk show.
“But I remember playing at Wanderers it is very difficult for spinners usually and their main bowler at that time was Harbhajan Singh. For an off spinner to bowl with short side boundaries there (was tough), and usually we play spin well,” he added.
Pakistan had lost all six matches coming into this final and had not even won a toss throughout that period. However, none of these mattered when India came out to bat first.
“Ye koi mushkil runs nahi hain ye (not a difficult target to chase), just need a good start.” explained Misbah. “But I think losing quick wickets in between three overs like run-out if Imran Nazir, so basically put pressure on us. When we went out we are seventy seven for six So due to fall of wicket target became difficult” he analyzed.
Though RP Singh struck early blows to peg them back at 26 for two, but it was the dismissal of Imran Nazir (33 off 14 balls) that really put pressure back on Pakistan in their run-chase.
“Mujhe lagta hai overconfident ho ke hi kaam kharab hua (I think things went bad because of overconfidence),” Misbah added.
13 runs were needed by pakistan to win when India captain MS Dhoni handed over the ball to Joginder Sharma.
“I was very confident that we need 13 runs and I have to middle only two balls. From there, we got some feeling that maybe luck is on our side, like that four to third-man boundary off an edge from (Mohammad) Asif’s bat. In addition, I hit a six in the first ball of the last over,” said Misbah, a former Pakistani skipper when he reminisced about India’s loss.
However, on the third ball of the over Misbah played a high-risk scoop shot towards fine-leg region and S Sreesanth took a catch as well; meaning that India had won this game by five runs which became famous thereafter.
“It is like that cricket is like that When you have just one wicket left then it means bowling side is ahead in this game because you know all what you do is one mistake out and game over”, he concluded.
