‘Pakistan lost their opening match of the T20 World Cup against the USA in the Super Over at Dallas on Thursday. At the end of the match, Captain Babar Azam accepted that they were below par in all three disciplines.’
Pakistan had a bad start, losing 3 wickets inside the powerplay to post 30 for 3. Babar Azam and Shadab Khan then steadied the ship with a partnership worth 72 from 48 balls. Notwithstanding their valiant efforts, Pakistan was held by USA to 159/7 before matching it and winning Super Over where they caused an upset.
Babar said that Pakistan was not happy with their batting toward the end of the game as they did poorly during Powerplay and bowled too slowly after reaching halfway. Then at later oves spins failed to take wickets because early plans were not carrie out therefore.
‘Losing is always disappointing if I must be honest,’ he said. “We didn’t do well in all three departments. We didn’t capitalize properly for six overs I think but later on when we got momentum after the tenth over again we went back and lost so many wickets and then your momentum goes away from you again. So yeah, we need to step it up as a batting unit in middle overs as well as towards end,’ Babar said after match.
He scored 44 off 43 balls when his side was struggling at three down inside six overs of play. When Pakistan kept on losing wickets one after another, he conceded that things changed.
‘The first six overs –the ball was holding onto it and doing something like swinging but afterwards I felt like it wasn’t a different surface really’, he added ‘It settled down a bit’. Because of early start – matches are starting at around half past ten right? So, fast bowlers will get some kind of assistance for this morning’s game which also had some juice on it as well. So, they used it and executed their plan. It was difficult at the start but we got through it.
‘I think when we lost those two back-to-back wickets that was the turning point. But as a professional, you have to step up against such a team in the batting…in the middle order. This condition is not an excuse…they played well, but I think we played badly,’ he added.
Super Over saw Mohammad Amir giving away 18 runs where USA hit four off last ball of normal overs for which Pakistan failed to win despite several unnecessary extras given away through wides and overthrows.
Afterwards, Pakistan will face their arch-rivals India in New York this Sunday. Babar also revealed that despite losing to America, they won’t change their tactics of death-overs based on bowling by using balls only in that crucial match.’
He concluded that the plan is simple: We try to hit yorkers and we are not changing any plans because the ball is reversing and our bowlers are very accurate, so our play will not be any different.
