File photo of Pakistan cricket team.© AFP
The Pakistan cricket team has been at the receiving end ever since its early exit from the T20 World Cup 2024. Notably, the side had also faced a group-stage exit from the Cricket World Cup held last year and now its latest failure has further raised questions on the performance of the team. There has been widespread criticism of the 2009 champions, who were also the runners-up in the last edition of the T20 world event. Former India opener Virender Sehwag also criticised the team heavily after its exit.
In one of the poorest campaigns, Pakistan kicked off with a disappointing loss to United States in Super Over in Group A that also had India, Canada and Ireland. In their second game, Pakistan lost to Rohit Sharma and Co. by six runs after failing to chase a target of 120 runs in New York.
While India made it to the Super Eight round quite comfortably, Pakistan were eliminated from the tournament with USA taking the second and remaining spot from the group.
USA, who had already beaten Pakistan and Canada in the group, advanced to the Super Eight with 5 points after their match against Ireland was washed out due to rain. Pakistan had their hopes dependent on that match as they needed USA to lose that game to stand a chance for Super Eight, but all that went in vain as rain played spoilspot to see the T20 World Cup debutants advance to the next stage.
“How can you blame rain? Even if you had won, you didn’t deserve to go ahead. You would’ve lost in Super Eight stage. You wouldn’t have had easier opponents there. You need to realise that you are losing to first-timers like USA, you don’t deserve to go ahead. You can’t chase 120 runs against India, score 113 with wickets remaining… How can you blame the rain?” Sehwag told Cricbuzz.
“In 2007, neither India nor Pakistan qualified for the second round. We were in different groups back then. Now, ICC will rethink on keeping India and Pakistan in a group and ensure they don’t keep a team that beats them!” he added.
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