Misbah-ul-Haq granted with honorary life membership by MCC

Pakistan cricket veteran Misbah-ul-Haq, who has been showered with accolades since he retired from the game of cricket, has recently been inducted as a lifetime member of Marylebone Cricket Club. Misbah recently hung his boots with Younis Khan as their tour to West Indies was their last ever assignment in Pakistan colours. Misbah the twenty-second Pakistan cricketer to receive the honour from MCC.

The other greats from Pakistan who have received the status are Ramiz Raja, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Javed Miandad, Abdul Qadir, Imran Khan, Zaheer Abbas and many others. J Burki was the first cricketer ever to be nominated for the honour way back in 1974. Ramiz Raza, who recently came out of the latest MCC meeting on the conservation of Test Cricket and made a bold statement about players being awarded Grade ‘A’ contract according to their stature.

Ramiz Raja, last Pakistani to be felicitated with membership

Raza was at the receiving end of a lot of backlashes to question the contract of greats such as MS Dhoni and Shahid Afridi. Raza came out to statement was blown out of proportion unfairly by the social media and his concern was only regarding the conservation of the oldest format of the game by prioritising its value.

Overall, in his cricketing career, he has represented Pakistan in as many 276 international matches. He has amassed more than 5000 runs in both ODI and Test cricket, averaging 43 and 46 respectively. Surprisingly, he could not bring up his maiden ODI century. He has as many as forty-two half-centuries to his name, with the highest score of an unbeaten 96.

It is baffling to think about the fact that a batsman like Misbah-ul- Haq does not have a century to his name whereas the likes of Amla, Kohli and de Kock are picking up ODI tons almost every other time they take guard.