“Hurt” Babar Azam’s Honest Admission As Afghanistan Stun Pakistan In Cricket World Cup 2023 | Cricket News

Visibly shaken Pakistan captain Babar Azam admitted “we are hurt” after his group was surprised in an eight-wicket defeat by Afghanistan on the World Cup on Monday which put their semi-finals hopes in peril. Afghanistan achieved their first-ever one-day victory over Pakistan in eight makes an attempt as they chased down a 283-run goal with an over to spare. Ibrahim Zadran hit an excellent 113-ball 87 whereas fellow opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz made a 53-ball 65 to construct a powerful platform, placing on 130 for the primary wicket.

Rahmat Shah’s unbeaten 84-ball 77 and skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi’s 48 not out sealed victory towards a sloppy Pakistan group.

“We are hurt as a team,” mentioned Azam whose facet now have three defeats and two wins in 5 matches.

They face a formidable South Africa on the similar Chennai venue on Friday.

“We must feel the disappointment and my message to my team for the remaining matches will be to learn from this defeat,” mentioned Azam, whose 74 off 95 balls aided by opener Abdullah Shafique’s 58 guided Pakistan to 282-7 after they gained the toss and batted.

“We achieved what we set out to do when we batted but we were not up to the mark in bowling and fielding,” mentioned Azam whose bowlers conceded 17 boundaries within the first 16 overs.

“We failed to put them under pressure but I congratulate Afghanistan for this victory.”

Afghanistan, who performed 4 specialist spinners on Monday, additionally now have two wins in 5 matches.

“Afghanistan’s spinners are of good quality so the plan was to not give them wickets until the 40th over and then charge in the last ten but we fell some 10-15 runs short,” mentioned Azam.

Noor Ahmad, 18, was the choose of the Afghanistan spinners with 3-49 on his World Cup debut whereas the extra skilled gradual bowlers, Rashid Khan and Mujeeb Ur Rahman went wicketless.

Despite Monday’s shock defeat, Azam pressured Pakistan can nonetheless qualify for the semi-finals.

“From now on we need to play our best cricket in all departments and must overcome our mistakes.”

Azam admitted that the group is affected by the absence on the match of quick bowler Naseem Shah who was dominated out of the World Cup with a shoulder harm.

“Of course, Naseem is missed badly because he had been part of our scheme but overall our bowling has not clicked,” mentioned Azam.

“We knew there are no margin for error on these grounds and we failed to execute plans.”

He added: “We have been perfect in training but I think our bowlers over-tried in matches and have leaked runs. We need to focus on positives and adopt a different mind-set.”

(Except for the headline, this story has been edited by Mahaz News workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)

Topics talked about on this article

Source web site: sports activities.ndtv.com

Rating
( No ratings yet )
Loading...