"Too many dot balls," Babar Azam explains reason for Pakistan's loss against India at ICC T20 World Cup 2024

The Babar Azam-led Pakistan lost by six runs while chasing 120 against India in New York.

Pakistan captain Babar Azam cited his batters playing “too many dot balls” in the middle overs as the chief reason for Pakistan’s loss against India in their ICC T20 World Cup 2024 encounter.

Rohit Sharma’s side produced a spectacular bowling performance to defend the total of 119 against their arch-rivals in New York. The Jasprit Bumrah-led Indian bowling attack was outstanding in defending a low total at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium.

Mohammad Rizwan was Pakistan’s top-scorer with 31 runs but he played 44 balls, hitting one one four and one six in his laborious knock. The next highest score in Pakistan’s innings was 15 (23) by Imad Wasim.

Pakistan were favourites to win the match when they needed 48 runs in 48 balls with eight wickets in hand. But, Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Siraj and Axar Patel bowled tidy overs and picked regular wickets to leave 18 runs for Arshdeep Singh to defend in the last over, which he did.

Babar Azam explains main reason for Pakistan’s loss

The Pakistan captain asserted that losing wickets and playing too many dot balls in the middle-overs phase of their innings cost them the match. Between overs 7 to 16, Pakistan scored 50 runs, lost three wickets and played 29 dot balls.

At the post-match presentation ceremony, Babar Azam said, “We bowled well after 10 overs and we would have taken 120. It’s a better total here. In the batting, we went run-a-ball but unfortunately, we lost back-to-back wickets and then there were too many dot balls. Tactics were simple, play normally, just rotate the strike and just try and play one boundary and be normal…get five or six an over. But, in that period, we had too much dot balls, the pressure was on us. We lost back-to-back two to three wickets.”

With two losses in two games, Pakistan’s path to the Super 8 is complicated. Apart from needing to win their remaining two matches, they will need a few other results to go their way.

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