The Rawalpindi Express, Shoaib Akhtar commented that Pakistan did not deserve to win against a dominant USA. Shoaib Akhtar also was verbal on his disappointment over Pakistan’s Super Over loss against USA at the Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas on June 6.
USA winning the toss bowled exceptionally well and restricted Pakistan to 159/7. Nosthush Kenjige took 3 wickets giving away 30 runs and Saurabh Netravalkar took 2 wickets for 18. The 2nd innings also went in USA’s favour as captain Monank Patel scored 50 off 38 with crucial contributions from Andries Gous, and Aaron Jones taking the game beyond the restricted 20 overs.
In Shoaib Akhtar’s Words
After USA’s dominant win against Pakistan, former PAK player Shoaib Akhtar expressed himself on X in a 33 second short video saying,
“Disappointing loss for Pakistan. We are not off to a good start, losing to USA. We repeated history, like we did against Bangladesh in the 1999 World Cup. Unfortunately, Pakistan never deserved to win. The reason is that USA played very well and were in a commanding position.
“[Mohammad] Amir saved the match. He and Shaheen [Shah Afridi] tried. They [US] won 37 overs of the contest, if we look at the overall picture. Unfortunately, we couldn’t pull it off.”
He captioned the post with,
“Hurt & disappointed.”
With their consecutive second win in the tournament, USA is not the Group A topper. They have showcased dominant performances against both Pakistan and Canada.
How USA Stunned Pakistan in the 2024 T20 World Cup
Batting first Pakistan got off to a shaky start when Mohammad Rizwan was dismissed for 9 to a brilliant catch by Steven Taylor at slip off Saurabh Netravalkar’s bowling. Usman Khan (3) and Fakhar Zaman (11) also fell short to perform. Captain Babar Azam managed to recover from a poor start by scoring 44 off 43 balls. Shadab Khan (40 off 25) and Shaheen Afridi (23* off 16) made vital contributions to push Pakistan close to a respectable total of 160 runs.
Chasing in the 2nd innings USA lost Taylor for 12 early on. But skipper Monank’s innings with a half-century anchored the match with the support of key knocks from Gous and Jones. Nitish Kumar (14* off 14) hit a crucial four off Haris Rauf over mid-off to take the match to a Super Over.
Even in the Super Over Pakistan’s poor performance continued as Amir gave away 18 runs. At the same time, Netravalkar of USA conceded only 14 runs, securing a historic win for his team.