Former wicketkeeper batter Kamran Akmal discussed Pakistan’s loss to Afghanistan in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023.
Pakistan suffered their first ODI defeat against Afghanistan in the World Cup match, losing by eight wickets.
The Green Shirts scored 282-7, with captain Babar Azam and opener Abdullah Shafique both scoring fifties. Babar Azam contributed 74 runs from 92 deliveries, while Abdullah Shafique scored 58 runs from 75 balls. The two players had a 54-run partnership for the second wicket.
Shadab Khan (40) and Iftikhar Ahmed (40) also made significant contributions with a 74-run partnership.
Afghanistan achieved a historic victory by successfully chasing the target of 283 runs in the 49th over, thanks to half-centuries from Rahmanullah Gurbaz (65), Ibrahim Zadran (87), and Rahmat Shah (77).
Pakistan’s poor bowling and fielding also played a role in Afghanistan’s win.
Kamran Akmal commented on the match, praising Pakistan’s batters Iftikhar Ahmed and Imad Wasim for their performance but expressing disappointment in their inability to score enough runs at the start. He also noted that Babar Azam and wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan gave away their wickets with poor shots.
He commended Afghanistan for their performance, particularly their ability to maintain a good run rate and keep wickets in hand.
Regarding Pakistan’s bowling, Akmal highlighted the impact of star pacer Naseem Shah’s injury and emphasized the importance of playing in longer formats for bowlers to be successful.
< script type="rocketlazyloadscript" >
window.fbAsyncInit = function () {
FB.init({
appId: ‘161345524510473’,
cookie: true,
xfbml: true,
version: ‘v3.0’
});
FB.AppEvents.logPageView();
};
(function (d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) { return; }
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));