Pakistan’s opening batsmen, Iman-ul-Haq and Fakhar Zaman failed to give Pakistan the required start despite being in a good touch against their crucial fixture against India in Dubai on Wednesday before Pakistan ended up losing the match by eight wickets.
Pakistan’s opening batsmen, Iman-ul-Haq and Fakhar Zaman failed to give Pakistan the required start despite being in a good touch against their crucial fixture against India in Dubai on Wednesday before Pakistan ended up losing the match by eight wickets.
Both the batters became Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s victims before Captain Sarfraz Ahmed chose to play a wrong shot too.
Soon after a great googly from Kuldeep Yadav ended Babar Azam’s calculated knock of 47 off 62 balls, Pakistan were again desperate of a partnership. With skipper at the crease, that should have been his responsibility to deliver a captain’s knock.
However, Sarfraz couldn’t resist cutting a full ball from Kedar Jhadav. While Sarfraz suggested Manish Pandey took an absolute stunner at wide long on, but Pakistan Coach Mickey Arthur opposed the very idea of that shot.
“[For] Imam, it's not his role to be running down the ground to Bhuvneshwar in the third over. It's not Sarfy's [Sarfraz's] role to be hitting over the top and getting caught out there. We've got X-factor guys whose role it is to do that. If Fakhar gets out playing that way, it's okay. If Asif gets out like that it's okay, because that's his role. But the other four batsmen certainly need to take responsibility," Arthur said.
"I think [it was] the pressure that told on Imam. As I said, out of his role, he had 2 off 8 balls or whatever, but Fakhar had just faced a maiden. So he tried to have a go, he tried to hit the ball that's not in his area. If he comes down, he's going to be going extra cover, not mid-wicket, so yes I do think there was a little bit of pressure.
I just thought we were soft - 158 dot balls out of 258 played [160 dots out of 259 played], is not good enough. It was just about taking responsibility tonight and we sort of batted outside our roles, which was very disappointing,” the Australian added.
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 "India vs Pakistan at the Asia Cup 2018")
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