Pakistan captain Mohammad Rizwan admitted that they made mistakes against India in the Champions Trophy clash against India at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai on Sunday.
Rizwan acknowledged that they had poor shot selection while batting whereas they were also poor in the field. Shubman Gill was dropped by Khushdil Shah on 35 whereas Shreyas Iyer’s catch was fluffed by Salman Ali Aghan when the batter was on 25.
India registered a comprehensive six-wicket win after Virat Kohli scored an unbeaten hundred in the run-chase of 242. This was Kohli’s maiden century in the Champions Trophy as he looked at his previous best. Shreyas Iyer also scored an impressive knock of 56 runs and made Pakistan pay for the drop catch.
Meanwhile, Pakistan lost both of their openers – Babar Azam and Imam-ul-Haq – cheaply after Rizwan decided to bat first. Subsequently, Mohammad Rizwan and Saud Saukeel scored 46 and 62 runs respectively but they failed to rotate the strike at regular intervals and thus the percentage of dot balls was on the higher side.
Mohammad Rizwan said in the post-match presentation, “We won the toss, but we didn’t get the benefit of toss. Their bowlers bowled very well. Me and Saud Shakeel, we wanted to take it deep.”
He added, “Poor shot selection. They put us under pressure. Whenever you lose, you didn’t perform in all departments. We wanted to squeeze, but we couldn’t. Kohli and Gill batted very well and took the game away. We need to improve in our fielding. We did a lot of mistakes in this match.”
After this loss, Pakistan are all but knocked out of the Champions Trophy.
The defending champions were not up to the mark in the field and their batters could not convert their starts. The Men in Green will next take on Bangladesh at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, Rawalpindi on Thursday.
