"We refused to win it," Shoaib Akhtar left shocked with Pakistan's batting collapse against India

Shoaib Akhtar said the batters didn’t need to play “stupid” shots when chasing a target of 120.

Shoaib Akhtar was left shocked by the failure of Babar Azam‘s side to chase the target of 120 runs against India in their ICC T20 World Cup 2024 encounter.

On Sunday, what had looked like a straightforward victory for Pakistan turned into one of their infamous collapses, resulting in a six-run defeat at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, New York.

Chasing 120, the Men In Green were in the driver’s seat after 12 overs with their score being 72/2. However, the Indian bowlers dried up the runs and applied more pressure which resulted in wickets. The epitome of this was Mohammad Rizwan’s poorly attempted slog across the line when Jasprit Bumrah came in to bowl his second spell. Rizwan, who scored 31 runs in 44 balls, missed the ball completely and was bowled. India capitalized on it and eventually won by six runs.

Bumrah was the Man of the Match for his outstanding figures of 3/14. All other bowlers also played their part in India’s win; five of the six bowlers India used had an economy of six or lower.

Pakistan tried their best to lose this game: Shoaib Akhtar

Speaking on PTV Sports after the match, former pacer Shoaib Akhtar expressed his shock at Pakistan’s loss. He said the batters simply didn’t press harder for the chase and when they did, they played “stupid” shots to lose their wickets.

Akhtar said, “I think we should give credit to Pakistan. They tried their best to lose this game. I could not think any other way. If you look at the middle-order and the whole batting order, it was just run-a-ball. Nobody asked you to hit, go across the line, do anything stupid. But, we made sure the match that could have been won easily by us, we refused to win it. Shocking, surprising.”

To reach the Super 8 stage, Babar’s team will need to win their next two games and hope the USA lose their game against Ireland. Even then, it would be down to their net run rates.

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