Execution the difference between Pakistan and India at T20 World Cup
Pakistan walked away from their T20 World Cup opener against India with a ten-wicket victory and tremendous confidence in their ability to go all the way.
Skipper Babar Azam shared an unbroken 152-run opening stand with Mohammad Rizwan and lauded the execution of skills shown both by the bowlers and his batting partner.
Everything went to plan for Babar, who won the toss and put India in to bat with Shaheen Afridi doing damage up front.
With bat in hand the plan was always to settle in and wait for the dew to make things challenging for India in defence of their 151 for 7.
“We executed our plans well and the early wickets were very helpful. Shaheen’s wickets gave us a lot of confidence and the spinners dominated as well,” Babar said after the match
“The plan with Rizwan is always to keep it simple. We tried to get deep in the crease and from about the 8th over the dew came in and the ball came on nicely.”
Babar said the team weren’t thinking about ending a T20 World Cup losing streak against India.
“This is just the start, we have confidence to build on now. It will remain match by match for us. The pressure on us wasn’t that much – we weren’t thinking of the record against India at all. I only wanted to back all our players who’ve been preparing well. When you play tournaments before a big World Cup, it helps and our players came in with a lot of confidence because of that.”
India skipper lauds Pakistan efforts
India skipper Virat Kohli was left to lament his team’s failure to execute their own skills but gave credit to Pakistan for thoroughly outplaying his team.
Kohli insists there won’t be any panic in the India camp after this result.
“We did not execute the things that we wanted to but credit is certainly due – they outplayed us today. When you lose three early it’s very difficult to come back, especially when you know the dew is coming. They were very professional with the bat as well. Hitting through the line was not as easy in the first half as it seemed in the Pakistan innings, so when you know the conditions can change, you need 10-20 extra runs. But some quality bowling from Pakistan didn’t let us get off the blocks. We’re certainly not a team that presses the panic button, it’s the start of the tournament, not the end.
