Pakistan had to swallow a tough pill of humiliation at the hands of Bangladesh, who defeated them in a virtual semi-final match of the Asia Cup 2018 and booked their place in the finals on Friday against India.
Pakistan were eliminated after Mushfiqur Rahim’s 99 took Bangladesh to 239 runs in their 50 overs. The ICC Champions Trophy 2017 winners were jolted badly with three early wickets and never recovered enough to pose a challenge to Bangladeshi bowlers, despite Imam’s feisty half-century.
Pakistani captain Sarfraz Khan came under fire for the team’s performance and said, “Yes, our performance was very poor. Our batting wasn’t good, and we dropped a lot of catches. Our bowling was also patchy, and that’s the reason we are out of the tournament.”
He added, “I know I didn’t perform well. I needed to do much better, which I couldn’t. I take responsibility for the team’s performance.”
“I still believe we have a lot of talented players in the team. Look at Fakhar Zaman. Though he didn’t have a good tournament, we have to back him. Babar Azam too. Imam has, thankfully, done well, but there’s also Shadab and Hasan. We have to back them and take them along with us. We have to look at our bench too. We have a pool of players, and by the time the World Cup comes, we’ll have a good team,” said Ahmed.
“The World Cup is quite some time away, we have other engagements before that. Australia are coming, and then there’s New Zealand. So we have to review our performance and see where we are falling short. We are losing too many wickets early, and the middle order has had to deal with the new ball, which isn’t easy, and hitting quickly in the end isn’t easy on these pitches. We’ll have to get together and fix these issues,” he continued.
While Ahmed called the performance ‘alarming’, he added, “There’s no need to press the panic button. Yes, we have made mistakes as a team, and as a captain, I know that I didn’t do well. But no need to panic, we need to back the players, look at the positions and see if there are people outside the team who can come in.”
“There’s always pressure on the captain of the Pakistan team. When the team does badly, obviously the pressure increases. If I tell you that I haven’t slept properly for the last six days, you won’t believe me. But yes, I want to stress that we shouldn’t panic. There should be criticism for our performance, but give us a little time,” he said.
“If you look at Fakhar Zaman or Imam-ul-Haq or Babar Azam or Shadab Khan or Hasan Ali, they are not too experienced. Shaheen Shah Afridi has played just three games. Only Shoaib bhai has a lot of experience. We recognise that we have done badly, but we’ll try to improve.”
(with inputs from icc-cricket.com)
