Former PCB president Ramiz Raja stated that India did Pakistan a “favor” by playing poorly in the second half of their innings during the T20 World Cup 2024 Group A match in New York, but the Babar Azam-led team did not capitalize on it.
On a sluggish Nassau Cricket County pitch, India were 80/3 after 10 overs. However, India could only manage 119 runs in 19 overs after Rishabh Pant was bowled for 42 and Axar Patel for 20.
According to Ramiz, if India hadn’t gone all out, they could have put the game out of reach for Pakistan.
“India did them a favor by playing poorly. Actually, because they were playing like mavericks, otherwise they would have easily gotten to 140-150, which would have been beyond Pakistan. But because of their faulty shot-making and some good bowling, Pakistan came back into the game,” Ramiz Raja told Cricbuzz.
Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah starred with the ball with three wickets each, while, Shaheen Afridi and Mohammad Amir picked wickets as well.
“We didn’t see any positive intent”- Ramiz Raja said Mohammad Rizwan’s wicket was a turning point
Nonetheless, the total proved sufficient. Indian bowlers, headed by Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya, put up an outstanding display to restrict Pakistan to 113/6 in 20 overs and take a significant step towards Super 8 qualifying.
Ramiz said Mohammad Rizwan’s wicket was the match’s turning point.
“We didn’t see any positive intent. There was no great game awareness either. That (Mohammad) Rizwan shot off (Jasprit) Bumrah was not on. Bumrah had come in to provide the breakthrough. His two overs were make-or-break for Pakistan. If they had put their mind to it and made sure that Bumrah was negotiated safely, it could have been a smooth sailing. Also Bumrah, as we all know, is a classic (bowler). Give him the ball in any crunch moment and he will deliver. There is so much clarity in his mind on what he wants to do and he’s always a step ahead of the opponent. That really was the critical moment,” he said.
The former batter said Pakistan players tend to freeze in pressure situations.
He added: “You got to do simple things. It was a difficult pitch and you saw how India threw their wickets away by trying to be aggressive. You couldn’t be aggressive because there was variation in the bounce. So what you had to do was to just negotiate two or three balls that were difficult. Otherwise, there were three, four runs. But they kept losing wickets. They lost momentum. It’s just that they tend to freeze in a tense situation. And that’s very sad to see. This was the best chance they had in a very long time to beat India.”