You are right …
If one wants to see why under Misbah Pakistan has become mouse amongst cats, because most of Pakistani players have low average (around 30.00) and low SR (around 72).
Compare Pakistan with top teams. SA has similar average and SR as others, probably second best, but they lost to a team that is also as good as any. Anyhow, since they are out of world cup, I am not including their figures.
So … let see the selection of NZ players, especially their SR and you will know why they are winning matches. One can see that only two have SR below 80 and one of them is bowler (Boult).
New Zealand players Average and SR:
[TABLE]
Players
Ave
SR
Guptill
40
83.1
B McCullam
30.7
94.5
Williamson
45.3
82.8
R Taylor
41.4
81.7
Elliot
34.7
77.8
Anderson
36.7
123.7
Ronchi
31.8
123.9
Vettori
17.4
83.3
Milne
19.5
84.8
Southee
10.3
91.7
Boult
13
76.5
One can see that most have SR in 80s, couple of them 90s and couple have over 100.
Earlier I gave average plus SR of Australian players. Repeating it here again:
Australian players Average and SR:
[TABLE]
Players
Ave
SR
Finch
36.6
88.4
Warner
34.9
89.2
Smith
37.5
88.5
Bailey
42
86.5
Watson
40.7
90.4
Marsh
32.2
90.2
Maxwell
35.4
126.2
Faulkner
44
112.3
Haddin
31.5
84.2
M Ckarke
44.6
77.8
Starc
23.2
85.7
Johnson
15.7
94.5
One can see that most have SR over 80, some 90 and 2 have SR over 100.
Here are Indian players Average and SR:
[TABLE]
Players
Ave
SR
R Sharma
39.5
82.4
Dhawan
44
89.6
Rahane
30.8
77.7
Kholi
51.9
89.9
Raina
36.4
93.8
Jadeja
32.8
84.7
Dhoni
52.4
89.1
Ashwin
18
88.3
Rayudu
41.3
75.5
Shami
10.8
87.1
M Sharma
I Sharma
Yadav
We can see that 4 players have high averages and SR around 90 (Dhawan, Kholi, Raina, Dhoni). Rest also have high SR.
Now, question arises, that did Pakistani team managers and Captain knew what they are going to face … and what is needed for a good ODI team?
More than management, it is captain who should know what type of players he has in his team, and what type of players are needed and if there were only idiots in team than he should have told the management, rather doing everything about playing politics and showing prejudice at the expense of National team. But then, Misbah own Ave was 43 and SR was 73, so instead of doing anything, he made sure no one comes in team who have higher average and SR, so that he can say that he did the best.
Actually Misbah performance as run accumulator was pathetic in 2014 … and performance of other Pakistani batsmen was similar.
Misbah made 285 runs in 12 innings at an average of 23.7
In those 12 innings, he scored below 20 runs in 8 innings. With two ducks, his score was below 5 runs in 4 innings.
With such pathetic performance, he decided to step down from playing in couple of matches too, and that is what he did.
So, one can say that Misbah was struggling to survive himself, and it is possible that best way he thought about his own survival was to keep good players out of team at the expense of Pakistan:
This is score of Misbah in various innings:
73, 0, 1, 4, 65, 13, 36, 18, 0, 15, 13 and 47. …
Total: 285 in 12 innings @ 23.75 runs per completed inning.