Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar criticised the Pakistan cricket team after their loss in the T20 World Cup 2024 opener clash against the United States. He recalled that Pakistan were the World Champions when they used to play for the country.
Manjrekar questioned the tactics of Pakistan during their opener clash at Grand Prairie Stadium in Texas. He said that Babar Azam & Co. have reached rock bottom and World Cup debutants USA are reaching Mt. Everest.
"So early to reach such a peak as far as international cricket is concerned, winning this game. You have got one team like USA reaching Mt. Everest while Pakistan have really hit rock bottom. I have not seen a worse performance from Pakistan. This is not just about the defeat. The review, the Super Over from Mohammad Amir, the misfields when the pressure was on. It hurts me to see this because when I played against Pakistan they were world champions, they have hit rock bottom now," Manjrekar said on Star Sports.
Manjrekar compared the current Pakistan cricket team with the club-level players. He also slammed experienced Mohammad Amir for starting with the wide ball while bowling in the super over. He conceded 18 runs from that over.
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"They have seen a few dips over the years. Pakistan being upset is actually a story in itself. India does not feature even once in the list of upsets in the T20 World Cup 2024. The quality of cricket that Pakistan have played today, they looked like club level players. Their batters at the top of the order gave far too much respect, they thought that 150 was a good enough score and that is why Babar Azam played the way he played. And that is where I really lost respect for Pakistan. Mohammad Amir has been brought for the experience and he started off with a wide ball in the Super Over. It was terrible," the ex-India batter added.
Pakistan will now lock horns against arch-rivals which will be played on June 9 at Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York.
India vs Pakistan head-to-head
Both India and Pakistan have played seven matches against each other in the history of T20 World Cup 2024 where Men in Blue hold the edge by winning six of them. Pakistan just won a single game that too in the 2021 World Cup under Babar Azam's captaincy.
Squads
Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Abrar Ahmed, Azam Khan, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Rizwan, Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Usman Khan.
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj
Reserves: Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Khaleel Ahmed and Avesh Khan.
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