Pakistan made it even against India with a thrilling five-wicket win over India in their opening Super4 encounter of Asia Cup 2022 in Dubai on Sunday and while it potentially setups a mouth-watering clash in the final – six days days from today – with the winner take all, the reactions pouring in for the game has been nothing short of winners themselves.
Former cricketers from across the border are also dissecting the win for Pakistan and the loss for India. Leading the bandwagon is none other than former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar, who has a reasonable fan following on his Youtube channel.
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Discussing about the match, Akhtar starts off with a fiery delivery stating that he had predicted Pakistan will bounce back after their league stage loss and will ‘ruthlessly’ trounce India. “Meine Indians ko bhi kaha, bahut sare doosto ko bhi kaha tha ki itna khush hone ki zaruurat nahi hai, Pakistan will make a strong comeback, meine video mein bhi bola tha Pakistan ruthelessly marage Hindustan ko. (I told the Indians and my friends that do not get too happy as Pakistan will make a strong comeback and I had said in an earlier video that Pakistan will ruthlessly trounce India)"
Akhtar though goes on to add that India should no lose heart due to this loss and questions India’s selection policy for the Pakistan game. “India should decide what should be their final XI. Who is your future – is it Rishah Pant, Dinesh Karthik, Deepak Hood or Ravi Bishnoi. Find you final XI at least first, because, this is a confused selection from India and I don’t know why is there so much confusion," he said.
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The former international talks about Pakistan’s performance and surprisingly says that he was not happy with how Mohammad Rizwan started his innings. Rizwan was one of the chief contributors to the Pakistan win, scoring 71 off 51 balls. “In Pakistan even if Babar Azam does not score, we have Rizwan, he performed well, but I would want him to see accelerate much earlier. He accelerated after reaching his fifty and his strike-rate improved thereafter, but I would request him to maintain a run a ball strike-rate right from the start."
However, Akhtar did concede that if it was not for Mohmmad Nawaz’s impactful innings of 42 off 20, Pakistan would not have managed to win. India scored 181/7 after being put into bat riding on Virat Kohli’s sublime 44-ball 60, but Pakistan trumped their arch-rivals on the back of a 73-run stand between Rizwan and Nawaz for the 4th wicket in just 39 balls in the middle overs and later on finishers Asif Ali ad Khusdil Shah ensured a Pakistan win.
“Today what Nawaz did, without that innings Pakistan would not have won," he said, adding “Nawaz hats off to you, you played really well and Shadab, Nawaz the spinner well done, great job; Naseem [Shah] you looked good. The grass was shaved off the wicket, it was made a batting wicket and everyone was just hitting the ball."
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