This is something Pakistan should think about, especially because they might not even realize how they lost against India. This happens when a team is not confident about their strengths, and often finds itself in situations where they struggle extremely.
This is exactly what happened to Pakistan when they played against India in the T20 World Cup in New York. Now, defending 120 runs in 20 overs doesn’t happen every day, because while chasing 120 runs, Pakistan had already scored 57 runs in 10 overs and lost only one wicket.
This means they needed 63 runs with nine wickets in hand. But they kept taking unnecessary pressure, and the biggest mistake was made by Mohammed Rizwan. He scored 31 runs off 45 balls, even when his team was chasing 120 runs.
Taking the match deep, taking the match deep—this mindset plauged Pakistan. If you are playing against Jasprit Bumrah, taking it deep will only play in his hands.
As soon as Bumrah comes in to bowl his second spell, Rizwan tries to hit him for a six and gets bowled. The match completely turned from there.
Sending Imad Wasim up the order was a big blunder. He scored 16 runs off 25 balls and stayed until the last over, but he couldn’t even hit the ball. This was a typical Pakistan performance where they didn’t know how to chase.
Often, teams don’t want the game to go to the last over, but Pakistan was trying to take the game to the last over, and that’s where they lost.
If you look at their batting performance, except for Naseem Shah and Fakhar Zaman, no one’s strike rate was above 100. Rizwan, trying to be the hero, flopped, and the whole team played under a lot of pressure.
Indian Bowlers were to severely damaging for inefficient Pakistan batters
The second biggest thing is that Indian bowlers also deserve credit. The match was such that it was 95% in Pakistan’s grasp and only 5% in India’s, but the Indian bowlers bowled with discipline, didn’t give away any extras, used the big boundaries well, and forced the Pakistani batsmen to take risks, making life difficult for them.
Moreover, India had a bowler like Jasprit Bumrah, whose death overs are very difficult to play. Pakistan didn’t realize why they thought they could score runs off Bumrah’s overs.
Now, it seems that Pakistan might be out of this year’s ICC T20 World Cup 2024 because they lost their first match to the USA and now their second match to India. After two losses in two matches, they are at the bottom, with the USA at number one in the group and India second.
It looks like these two teams will qualify for the World Cup, and Pakistan’s remaining two matches will be very difficult because even if they win both, it will depend a lot on the net run rate to see if they qualify for the Super 8 or not.
