Former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar expressed his discontent over Men in Green's batting in a thrilling six-run defeat against Team India at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York on Sunday, June 9.
With a mere target of 120 after bundling out Team India for 119, Pakistan failed to chased it down as they were restricted to 113/7 in a stipulated 20 overs. Mohammad Rizwan led Pakistan's batting with a mediocre innings of 31 off 44 balls. Apart from Rizwan, no other batters managed to score above 20 runs in the run-chase, leading to their defeat against India.
Sharing a clip on his Instagram handle, Shoaib Akhtar is one of the opinion that Mohammad Rizwan would've carried on his innings and take the team past the finishing line as it was run a ball for him.
"Again, I'm going to put any account of responsibility to anybody. But, I think it was run a ball for Rizwan where he could've take it easy and won the match. 20 runs probably would've been able to finish and win the game for us." Akhtar said in a video.
"It is sad, it is really really sad. We didn't apply brains as it was just run a ball." he added.
Mohammad Rizwan's dismissal at 80/4 was turning point of the match as the opener was anchoring the innings and looking to take Pakistan past the finishing the line. However, Jasprit Bumrah was brought into the attack in the 15th over and ended Rizwan's stay at the crease by rattling his defences with a ripper.
After Rizwan's dismissal, Pakistan lost three more wickets in Shadab Khan (4), Iftikhar Ahmed (5) and Imad Wasim (15) and they were reduced to 102/7 in 19.1 overs. When 18 runs off 5 balls required for Pakistan to win, Naseem Shah scored 10 runs off 4 balls and but, eventually seven runs short of achieving the target.
Jasprit Bumrah led India's bowling attack brilliantly as he registered the figures of 3/14 with an economy rate of 3.50 in four overs. Handya was the second-best bowler after Jasprit Bumrah as picked two wickets while conceding 24 runs with an economy rate of six in four overs. Axar and Arshdeep scalped a wicket each.
