What's next for Misbah ul Haq.

After Pakistan lost in the third ODI and conceded the series to Australia it was pretty obvious there will only be one person who will be blamed for this, Misbah ul Haq…That’s what exactly happened.

Okay well #BlameMisbah has become a famous trend on twitter in any case, mostly used by people who have no clue what Cricket is all about.. People blame him for so many things, for the things that aren’t even related to the captain.

Let’s take the example of the review against Michel Hussey that eventually cost us the match. Anyone will know it was Saeed Ajmal’s decision not to take the review and bowler knows the best, yet we blamed Misbah.

We sure are emotional people and we don’t really see what the actual facts are. Let’s not even go into the technical details of what happens in the cricket field and what were the reasons, let’s keep it simple and ask a few questions to ourselves.

Is it Misbah’s mistake that Shahid Afridi the most important player in the team hasn’t been performing well with both the bat and ball? Just look at what Afridi has done in the past year as an all rounder and you’ll be amazed how he still survives in the team.

Is it Misbah’s mistake that Pakistan has no capable fast bowler to rely upon? We have tried several fast bowlers in the last couple of years. Umar Gull, Sohail Khan, Aizaz  Cheema, Tanvir Ahmed, Sohail Tanvir, Rahat Ali, Junaid Khan, Wahab Riaz, Muhammad Sami and no one has been able to perform consistently.

Is it Misbah’s mistake that Pakistani fielders are the most laziest in the field, drop simplest of chances, miss half a dozen run out chances every match? At the age of 38, Misbah ul Haq along with Younis Khan is the most capable and the fittest person in the team.

Is it Misbah’s mistake that Pakistan’s batting collapses every now and then? Misbah has been the most 

consistent performer with bat in both the test and ODI series. Let’s keep it to this year and ODI matches he is been Pakistan’s leading run scorer with 477 runs at an average of almost 40.

His performance as a captain this year may not be up to the mark as Pakistan has lost all the ODI series they have played, because of all the above mentioned reasons and are in search of a suitable combination in this format.

The next two series will be decisive for his future. India vs. Pakistan is always a high profile clash no matter what, a series that makes or breaks careers. And then the tour of South Africa, a place where spinners won’t be much effective and the unavailability of quality fast bowlers won’t make life easier. A poor performance in these two series will not go unnoticed.

We never know the future, Pakistan may perform really well and Misbah can carry on a little longer but he is 38 now, neither is time on his side nor the critics.

Hopefully, before he retires we will give him the due respect and credit for everything he has done for Pakistan especially over the last two years. Hopefully we will realize that Cricket is a team game played by 11 players and make some cricketing logic with the arguments over the social networks. Hopefully logic will prevail and not emotions.