Pakistan suffered a five-wicket defeat at the hands of England in the T20 World Cup 2022 final at MCG on Sunday (November 13).
In the summit clash, Pakistan posted 137/8 on the board after being invited to bat first. Shan Masood was the top scorer with 28-ball 38.
In reply, the Three Lions rode on Ben Stokes’ unbeaten 52 off 49 balls to overhaul the target with an over to spare.
After the game, former Pakistan pacer Mohammad Amir said that the Men in Green didn’t deserve to qualify for the T20 World Cup 2022 final.
Amir pointed out that Pakistan batters weren’t up to the mark apart from their matches in Sydney and he wasn’t surprised to see their batters struggling on a bowling-friendly Melbourne track.
“The fact that we played in the final is a big thing. We didn’t deserve to play in the final. The whole world knows how we advanced to the final. Allah helped us reach there. You will get to know the results if you look at the performance of our batters. Once we got out of Sydney, it was given that this would happen,” Amir was quoted as saying to 24 News.
“I told you earlier that if the pitch at MCG is the same as it was in the first match, Pakistan will struggle and we did. After winning the toss, we got off to a good start and we knew how the conditions were,” he stated.
Notably, Pakistan were in dire straits after suffering two back-to-back last-over defeats in the Super 12 round versus India and Zimbabwe. However, they showed great character and bounced back to register wins against Netherlands, South Africa, and Bangladesh.
Moreover, the result of some other games went in their favour and the Babar Azam-led side eventually made it to the semi-final, where they defeated New Zealand by seven wickets.
Meanwhile, Amir also slammed young batter Mohammad Haris for trying to take leg-spinner Adil Rashid to the cleaners. Haris was dismissed by Rashid for 12-ball 8 in the all-important final.
“We talked about Haris and his intent. But along with intent, you also need to have sense. On the first ball, he faced off Adil Rashid, he tried to come down the track.
“On these pitches, you can’t leave it to someone else. The new batter will struggle. Ben Stokes showed that experience and game-awareness,” Amir remarked.
