Captain Misbah-ul-Haq Tuesday termed former Twenty20 champions Pakistan’s seventh place in the inaugural world rankings as “shocking” for the team, but said his players will aim to improve in the most popular form of the game.
Pakistan finished runners-up to India in the inaugural World Twenty20 in 2007 before winning the title in England in 2009 and finished losing semi-finalists in the last event held in the Caribbean in 2010.
But Pakistan’s 13 defeats in their last 24 T20 matches since August 2009 to August this year — the period for which the inaugural rankings were devised and announced on Monday — left them at the bottom of the table topped by England.
England won the third World Twenty20 last year.
“It was quite a shock to the whole team,” said Misbah when asked about Pakistan’s low rankings. “We felt it quite a lot, all the players,” said Misbah who featured in Pakistan’s defeat in the final against India in 2007.
Misbah said all his players were eager to improve their ranking before next year’s fourth World Twenty20 to be held in Sri Lanka next year.
“We’ve spoken about it as well. All the players have quite a lot of concern about it. All the players want to do well. We’ve lost quite a few of our last T20s, so all the players felt it and their thinking is that they need to improve it now.”
Pakistan starts the second Test against Sri Lanka here from Wednesday. The three-Test series will be followed by five one-day and a Twenty20, and Misbah promised a changed approach.
“Next time we play a T20, our approach will be that this is a format that we have done really well in, it’s a format that we’ve played a lot, and our performances in the three World T20s, runner-up, winner, then semis, we want to bring that ranking back,” said Misbah.
Misbah, leading Pakistan in Tests since September 2010, was also appointed captain for one-day and T20 formats of the game earlier this year.
