Pakistan skipper makes sombre prediction of side’s CT campaign after suffering a crushing loss to archrivals India.
Pakistan skipper Muhammad Rizwan has more or less admitted that his team are no lnger in contention to defend their Champions Trophy crown.
Rizwan’s side suffered a chastening 4-wicket loss at the hand of eternal rivals India in what turned out to be another predictable no-contest between the two sides. The Men in Green were outmatched in all facets of the game by their Indian counterparts.
The defeat to India follows closely after the loss they suffered against New Zealand in Karachi where they were nowhere in the contest chasing 321 in batting-friendly conditions.
The poor nature of the performance by the side has been an absolute dampener to the spirits of Pakistani fans. After close to a decade of cricketing wilderness and 29 years since hosting an ICC event, cricket had finally come to Pakistan.
It was also a golden opportunity to defend their title after having won it in 2017 by comprehensively beating India. However, that is no longer to be.
With just one match remaining against Bangladesh, the reigning champions must rely on other group results to advance to the final four. Although it seems less likely to occur in this tournament, Pakistan has frequently found themselves in that predicament in recent years, and Rizwan is not particularly fond of it.
“We can say for now that it is over – that is the truth,” Rizwan said after the game. “We’ll see what Bangladesh does with New Zealand, then New Zealand with India, and then what we do. It’s a long road and it depends on other teams.
“As a captain, I don’t like depending on others. If you are good enough, you show it by winning and keeping things in your hands. Waiting on other teams, I don’t like worrying about their results. What matters is that India and New Zealand beat us. They played strong cricket and we didn’t play well. If we get a chance [to sneak through] then so be it.”
“When you lose, you’re obviously disappointed and it’s a difficult time, difficult questions come up,” he said. “We made mistakes in all three departments, that is why we lost today.
“We made mistakes we’ve been making in the last few matches. These aren’t new mistakes. We’ve been making them in the last four games. We work on them, but we are humans, our players are humans, these mistakes happen. We’re trying to work on those, we’re trying to put the effort in to resolve those.
“What I believe is that India’s effort was greater than us, they were braver than us. That is why they got the result. We made mistakes, maybe because when we had to show bravery in some moments we didn’t show enough. In our fielding we needed to show more energy, but maybe we were lacking in that, and so made mistakes.”