India’s bowlers outclassed Pakistan’s batters in New York on Sunday in a highly-anticipated encounter of the T20 World Cup 2024 as the Men in Green failed to achieve the target of 120 runs.
The win could have been one of the easiest for Pakistan and could have revived their chances to qualify for the Super 8s in the T20 World Cup 2024 after their defeat at the hands of the USA team in the opening game on June 6 at the Grand Prairie Stadium.
Nevertheless, the fans, cricket experts and former Pakistani cricketers were left distraught and enraged over Pakistan’s defeat at the hands of the arch-rivals including former captain Shahid Afridi, who was in New York.
Afridi took to his YouTube channel and said in a video message for Pakistan and its fans that the 120-run target was just a run-a-ball chase and the team failed to even achieve that.
“We [Pakistan] just needed to score 120 runs [to win] on the pitch where India was 35-40 runs short [in the first innings] but with the disciplined bowling of their bowlers, we failed to score even 120 runs. It was a game of 120 runs on 120 balls,” he said.
Afridi also blasted the mindset of Pakistani bowlers winning games for the team and batters not doing anything for the winning cause, “Why? Because we [Pakistan] always blame the bowlers for not restricting teams on small totals because that is how our mindset has been set that we just don’t want to score runs.”
Afridi also expressed his hopelessness regarding the defeat and overall performance of Pakistan in the T20 World Cup 2024 and their recent outings as well.
“We [Pakistan] failed to score such a total with such a strong batting line-up. I have no words. All I have is disappointment,” Afridi concluded.
Pakistan cricket team still has a chance to qualify for the Super 8s if they win their remaining matches, against Canada and Ireland, and hope other results go their way.
- Shahid Afridi
