Tuesday, 25th September 2007 at 2:58 pm

Misbah ul Haq’s recurring nightmare

There are moments in sport that will never leave us as fans - dropped catches, missed penalties, fumbled passes. And then there are those that will never leave the professionals - Jeff Wilson will never forget that tackle by George Gregan, Robbie Fleck still wakes up in a cold sweat over the Deon Kayser tackle, Donald and Klusener have the eternal scar of the semifinal we’d all rather forget, and Roberto Baggio will have a penalty spot in America haunt him ’til his dying day.

And now there’s another man to add to that list, a man whose searing memory is all the more painful for the hard work he’d done before the fatal finish. Misbah ul Haq had dragged Pakistan back into the game with last-minute flourish, raining sixes upon a crowd all but resigned to an Indian victory. The last-over blow to clear long-off set Pakistan up for a famous victory, a mere six runs suddenly required from four balls to win the Twenty20 World Championship.

But instead of sealing the win - and his own place in cricket history - the scoop over fine-leg (shown above, a shot that had worked so well on previous attempts) was Misbah’s high-profile undoing, up there with Mike Gatting’s reverse sweep in the 1987 World Cup. Ball scooped up, comfortable catch taken, last wicket fallen, and India champions. Cue delight across India, dismay across Pakistan, and a moment Misbah ul Haq will never, ever forget.