'Considered pulling out of New Zealand tour': Misbah-ul-Haq

He said we are here to support international cricket in difficult times

(Web Desk) – Pakistan head coach Misbah-ul-Haq on Friday said that they considered abandoning its cricket tour of New Zealand while in 14-day quarantine but opted to stay for their fans.

Pakistan s tour was thrown into disarray upon arrival after it emerged that a few of the team s members had breached local health protocols laid out by the New Zealand s health authorities.

This was followed by an emergence of more than half-a-dozen positive cases within their ranks forcing the local authorities and the board to confine the team into an additional days of quarantining without access to practice and training facilities that had been granted to the West Indies side.

The team was stripped of its allowance to train, issued with a final warning by the New Zealand government and risked being expelled from the country. But there were no more breaches.

“We did discuss [pulling out of the tour] but then finally decided to say no to this option because when you invest this much time on this, then you have got to give it a shot,” Misbah said on Friday.

He also called on players and officials to make sacrifices in order to facilitate the conduct of international cricket amidst the Coronavirus pandemic. The former Pakistan captain also implored cricket boards to find ways to make bubble life easier on athletes. "If we have to co-exist with COVID-19 and also ensure cricket is played then all teams have to give sacrifices like we did here. We are here to support international cricket in difficult times so that cricket fans and people get to see cricket and some entertainment.

"[But] it is a great stress mentally on the players who are the main stakeholders of the sport and from what I know cricket boards are already working on ways to ease things for us".

Given the lack of practice time owing to health reasons, Misbah expects Pakistan s batsmen to take time in acclimatising to conditions and wants the bowlers to make up for any disadvantage in the other dimension and fight the fire of the in-form Lockie Ferguson with bowling fire of their own. Misbah also hoped the experience of touring England earlier this year will have helped the team adjust quickly.

"Batting is a challenge for us but we can make it up with our bowling qualities," Misbah said. "We know he (Ferguson) bowls over 150km/h. He is a very hostile bowler but if they have one we have four bowlers like this who can touch 150. Wahab [Riaz], even Shaheen [Afridi] too touches 144 when he hits his peak.