I remember watching Misbah-ul-Haq first in NZ (as part of a new look Pakistani team which, playing with four debutants, including the much-maligned sami, completely surprised the kiwis at Auckland - it was a win orchestrawed by an excellent bowling performance from Saqlain [one of his last match-winning efforts] and Sami, who looked the real deal) and he didn't impress me at all. IIRC, he was drafted in becauase of his heroics in the domestic circuit, more specifically, scoring a tripple century (making him the second, or perhaps third, if my memory serves me correctly, player after Navid Latif to be selected based primary on that particular achievement).
It is possible that he has matured as a cricketer. One can certainly hope so, because with both Inzy and Yousuf out of the fray and Asim Kamal being summarily discarded, not to mention the selectors strange aversion towards blooding younger players, we need somebody to really, really step up and shoulder the weight/steal the limelight - the loss of both, particularly Inzamam [who for all his twattish captaincy, religious zealoticity and oxymoronish rhetoric always led from the front and was the cornerstone for the best pakistani batting performances during the last two decades] will come to haunt us in the near future.
