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New York, June 10 (HS). After losing the ICC T20 World Cup match against India by six runs, Pakistan captain Babar Azam admitted that his team played more dot balls in the second half of the innings, which led to their defeat despite excellent bowling.
Chasing a target of 120 runs in a thrilling contest between bat and ball at the Nassau County Stadium in New York on Sunday, Pakistan were at one stage in a winning position but Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya pulled the match back with their bowling and gave India a 6-run win.
After the match, Babar said, “We bowled well. In batting, we lost two wickets in a row and played a lot of dot balls. The strategy was simple to play in general. Just strike rotation and a few boundaries. But in that period (in the second half of their run-chase) we played a lot of dot balls. We can’t expect much from the tailenders. Our mind was on using the first six overs in batting. But after losing a wicket, we again couldn’t perform well in that phase. The pitch was looking good. The ball was coming on nicely. It was a bit slow, and a few balls were extra bouncy. We have to win the last two matches. We will sit and discuss our mistakes, but are eagerly looking forward to the last two matches.”
After this thrilling win, India is at the top of Group A with two wins and four points from two matches. Pakistan is at the fourth spot, having lost both its matches to USA and India. Their chances of reaching the knockout stage look slim.
Talking about the match, Pakistan won the toss and invited India to bat first. However, the Indian batsmen did not perform well on this difficult surface and star openers Virat Kohli (4) and Rohit Sharma (13) failed to score big. Rishabh Pant (42 off 31 balls, six fours) was playing on a different pitch and he made useful partnerships with Axar Patel (20 off 18 balls, two fours and a six) and Suryakumar Yadav (seven off eight balls, a four). However, the lower middle order crumbled under the pressure of scoring runs on such a difficult pitch and India could only score 119 runs in 19 overs.
For Pakistan, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah took 3-3 wickets, Mohammad Amir took two and Shaheen Shah Afridi took one wicket.
Pakistan took a more balanced approach in the run-chase and Mohammad Rizwan (31 off 44 balls with a four and a six) held one end up. However, Bumrah (3/14) and Hardik Pandya (2/24) also took important wickets of captain Babar Azam (13), Fakhar Zaman (13), Shadab Khan (4), Iftikhar Ahmed (5) to keep the pressure on Pakistan. With 18 runs needed in the final over, Naseem Shah (10*) tried to seal the win for Pakistan, however, Arshdeep Singh (1/31) ensured Pakistan fell behind by six runs. Bumrah won the 'Player of the Match' award for his match-winning spell.