Former Pakistan skipper Shoaib Malik lambasted the Pakistan opener Imam-ul-Haq over his below-par batting performance in the ongoing ODI World Cup in India. The southpaw failed to give his side a blistering start in the powerplay and has been poor with the bat so far in the tournament.
A surprising loss for the Men in Green occurred on Monday when Afghanistan defeated Pakistan in the 2023 World Cup. The first loss against Afghanistan has seriously hurt Pakistan’s chances of making it to the semifinals of the mega event in India.
Speaking on the Pavilion’s show on YouTube channel A Sports, Shoaib Malik expressed his concerns about Imam-ul-Haq’s poor strike rate in the competition and questioned why his batting was not a topic of discussion in the Pakistani team. He also recalled his tweet about the camaraderie and favours in the Pakistani team during the 2022 T20 World Cup.
“When he was scoring runs consistently with the same strike rate, no sixes, maybe two fours. We were okay as a nation. Why were we ok that time? Why did it not bother us? If you remember, I was the one who tweeted. Now, everyone remembers that. I tweeted, ‘When will we come out of friendships and favours? God helps those who are honest’,” Malik said.
“I talked about everything in our system (in the tweet). If I were diplomatic, I wouldn’t shoot myself in the foot when the World Cup squad (T20 World Cup 2022) was about to get announced. It was about the whole infrastructure. And I’m sticking to my tweet,” Shoaib Malik added.
Imam-ul-Haq, who had a strong start to the competition, has so far been unable to take advantage of his opportunities. In his five games, Imam has only scored one fifty at the top of the order, while openers in the other teams have been exceptional which has helped their team to give a good start to the innings.
Pakistan has lost its last three games, including the match against Afghanistan on Monday, but it still has four league games left in the World Cup. If they can win the remaining games, they still have a chance to advance to the semifinals and the Men in Green would look to give their all in the remaining games to make it into the last four of the mega event in India.
