In the World Cup tournaments, the Indian team has always achieved success against their arch-rivals Pakistan team. Former Pakistan captain Waqar Younis has recently talked about the reason why Pakistan haven’t achieved any success against the Indian team in the World Cup yet.
In the ODI Cricket World Cup history, India and Pakistan have met seven times, and India won all those matches. Their first CWC meeting was during the 1992 edition at Sydney, where India beat the Pakistan team by 43 runs. In the 1996 World Cup quarter-final at Bengaluru, India again achieved success against their arch-rivals by 39 runs. India won by 47 runs during their meeting against Pakistan in the 1999 edition.
In ICC Cricket World Cup 2003, when Waqar Younis led the Pakistan team, Sourav Ganguly-led India beat them by six wickets with 26 balls to spare. Later, in the semi-final of the CWC 2011, Pakistan suffered another defeat by 29 runs. In the 2015 and 2019 editions, India claimed dominant victories by 76 and 89 runs respectively.
Talking about India’s continuous success against Pakistan in the World Cup tournaments, the present Pakistan fast-bowling coach Younis feels that the Indian team deserves this due to always performing better than them.
Answering a fan’s question on the Twitter platform @GloFansOfficial, Younis commented, “Over the last few World Cups, Pakistan have not won against India. We did well in other formats, we did well in Test matches, but when it comes to World Cups and ODI Cricket, India has always had an upper hand on us. And they deserve it. I think they played better cricket than us.”
India vs Pakistan in the CWC history: Waqar Younis experienced two matches
Among those seven India vs Pakistan encounters in the Cricket World Cup history, Waqar Younis appeared in two matches, during the 1996 World Cup quarter-final at Bengaluru and Group Stage of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003 at Centurion. Talking about those matches which he experienced on the field, Younis claimed that they were in the games but didn’t play smartly like the Indian team.
Younis added, “I remember in Bangalore and back in I think that was in Pretoria in 2003. I remember most of them and I think I have played a couple of them. So they were a very good side and I think on that particular day they just came out with a very positive frame of mind, they played better cricket and played smartly. We did not play smartly; we had games in our hands.”
It is just the psychological pressure on us that we just cannot really win against them: Waqar Younis
Talking about their close fights, Younis pointed out their meeting in the semi-final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 along with the 1996 World Cup quarter-final. He feels that they just threw away those matches. The former Pakistan fast-bowler believes that the Pakistan team now faces the psychological pressure due to their continuous unsuccessful journeys against the Indian team.
Younis continued, “If you look at the World Cup in 2011 and then of course back in ’96 also we had the game in our hand, but it is just, we… we just threw it away. It is hard to pinpoint why we do that, maybe, it’s just the pressure of the World Cup now because it happens so many times, it is just the psychological pressure on us that we just cannot really win against them but yeah, it’s very-very difficult to pinpoint on one thing.”
Not only in the ICC Cricket World Cup, but India have also maintained this unbeaten runs in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup history, where India won all the five encounters against Pakistan (including one victory in bowl-out after the tie result), including winning the ICC World T20 2007 final.