{"id":401780,"date":"2024-06-10T20:27:48","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T20:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=401780"},"modified":"2024-06-11T00:06:26","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T00:06:26","slug":"average-pakistan-tried-their-best-to-lose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=401780","title":{"rendered":"'Average' Pakistan 'tried their best to lose'"},"content":{"rendered":"

The timid batting of Pakistan's cricket<\/a> team has left the country\u2019s former cricketers and fans furious after rival India snatched a thrilling six-run win in the marquee game at the Twenty20 World Cup in New York.<\/p>\n

A second successive loss in Group A left Pakistan in danger<\/a> of not advancing to the Super 8 stage of the tournament being jointly hosted by the U.S. and the West Indies.<\/p>\n

The United States, playing at the World Cup for first time, already made history last Thursday when it beat Pakistan in a Super Over after both teams were locked at 159 during the regulation 20-overs game.<\/p>\n

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Only two teams from each of the four groups advance to the second stage. So Pakistan needs to win its remaining games against Canada and Ireland and also hope results of other group games go in its favor to progress.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I should have a template text \u2018disappointed and hurt\u2019 automatically set to be posted,\u201d wrote former Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar on X, formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should give credit to Pakistan, they tried their best to lose this game, I could not think any other way,\u201d Akhtar said on national television\u2019s sports channel PTV Sports. \u201cIt was run-a-ball, nobody asked you to hit and do anything stupid. Shocking, surprised, disappointed, but that was expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Akhtar said the Pakistan team is made up of ordinary cricketers and he has no hope the team will get better in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey won\u2019t change,\u201d he said. \u201cYou are demanding extraordinary things from average people, you won\u2019t get it. When mediocrity comes in you can\u2019t get beyond that. That\u2019s what you are getting from your investment (in cricket) for the last 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Akhtar also criticised the International Cricket Council for the drop-in pitches in New York where all the five games have been low-scoring ones.<\/p>\n

\"Fakhar<\/p>\n

\u201cWho makes that kind of tracks?\u201d he questioned. \u201cYou had one year to prepare yourself. Hello ICC, wake up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pakistan blew an ideal opportunity after its fast bowlers had bowled out India for 119 in 19 overs on another tricky surface where batters continued to struggle. It was cruising along at 3-80 in 13 overs when set batter Mohammad Rizwan played a reckless shot against Jasprit Bumrah and eventually Pakistan got restricted at 7-113.<\/p>\n

\u201cBatsmen throw it away as Pakistan lose to India in low-scoring nailbiter,\u201d read the headline on the front page of English daily newspaper Dawn. The newspaper also splashed the picture of Rizwan on his knee after getting clean bowled and Bumrah celebrating the dismissal with Virat Kohli.<\/p>\n

\u201cPakistan squander solid start as India claim T20 thriller,\u201d headlined The News, another English daily.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s former fast bowling greats Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram, who commentated on the game from New York, also vented their anger after the defeat against India.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have been playing cricket for 10 years and I can\u2019t teach them,\u201d Akram said. \u201cRizwan has no game awareness. He should have known Bumrah was given the ball to take wickets and that the wise thing would have been to play his deliveries cautiously, but Rizwan went for the big shot and lost his wicket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Younis said it was a horrible performance from the batters.<\/p>\n

\"Hardik<\/p>\n

\u201cPakistan, if you can\u2019t win this game, what should I say?,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was given to you on a plate and Pakistan really spilled it. It was horrible performance by the Pakistan batters. There were a few partnerships in the beginning but they couldn\u2019t really finish the game.<\/p>\n

Thousands of cricket-mad fans had gathered in front of large screens in major cities in Pakistan to watch the blockbuster contest between the two nuclear-armed nations that have not played in any bilateral cricket matches for over a decade, but regularly play against each other in the ICC tournaments.<\/p>\n

At least 17,000 people watched the game live on screens at the Pindi Cricket Stadium \u2018fan park\u2019, specifically set up by the ICC.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe it,\u201d said 20-year-old university student Ibrahim Irfan after he walked out of the stadium in disbelief with his four friends. \u201cIt\u2019s disgusting to say the least. How can they lose a game while chasing such a small target? We need a major overhaul. We are sick and tired of watching the same useless batters like Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan and Imad Wasim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahmed Awan, another fan who watched the game on giant screen in Karachi, said Pakistan players play for personal milestones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey bowled well but the batting was disappointing. They are playing for personal milestones \u2026 they should open the batting with tail-enders and also in the middle order. The openers should come in the latter half of the game, be it (captain) Babar (Azam) or Rizwan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The timid batting of Pakistan's cricket team has left the country\u2019s former cricketers and fans furious after rival India snatched a thrilling six-run win in […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":401782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=401780"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401785,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401780\/revisions\/401785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/401782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=401780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=401780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=401780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}