Pakistan captain Babar Azam was left furious as Haris Rauf bowled a low full toss which was hit for a boundary over mid-off by USA batter Nitish Kumar to take the game into super over. Babar was animated as the ball cleared the mid-off fielder and went for the boundary.
USA needed 15 runs in the last over. First, Aaron Jones was dropped on the second ball by Shaheen Afridi. After three singles on first three balls, Jones smashed a six to keep the game alive. Rauf bowled one in the blockhole and conceded just a single off the penultimate over.
Earlier, Babar struggled to find singles amidst a batting collapse. He did not score the first boundary of his knock till the last ball of the 10th over. He accelerated after and hit a couple of sixes. He departed for a 43-ball 44. In the slog overs, cameos from Shaheen Afridi and Iftikhar Ahmed helped Pakistan post a fighting total of 159/7 at Grand Prairie Stadium, Dallas.
In the super over, Babar did not come out to bat and send Iftikhar Ahmed, Fakhar Zaman. Iftikhar departed after hitting a boundary. Shadab Khan was the third batter for Pakistan in the super over. Pakistan managed to score 13 runs while chasing 20 runs in the super over and lost their first-ever T20I to a non-Test playing nation.
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What Babar said after the defeat
After the shocking defeat, Babar did not took the blame for his slow batting but said that they were not up to the mark in the powerplay overs.
“First 6 overs while batting we didn’t capitalise. Back to back wickets always put you on the back foot, as a batter you need to step up and build partnerships,” he said in the post-match presentation.
Babar also blamed the spinners as they failed to get a wicket in the middle overs.
“We were not up to the mark in the first 6 overs with the ball. Our spinners also did not take wickets in the middle overs so these things cost us,” he added.
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