Former Indian Captain Sourav Ganguly thinks that Pakistan’s comeback in the World Cup 2023 will be difficult after the defeat against India in the ICC event.
Sourav Ganguly throws at Pak batting line-up
Pakistan lost the match against India on October 14 at Narendra Modi Stadium. Winning the toss, India chose to bowl. Pakistan had a good start and was in a strong position with 155/2. But soon their batting order collapsed and they were folded for 191 runs.
Sourav Ganguly was surprised to see their collapse in their batting line-up and feels the old Pakistan team is more stable and competitive than the current one.
Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq opened the innings while Jasprit Bumrah opened the bowling attack. Shafique was sent out by Siraj for 20 runs while Imam-ul-Haq was sent out with 36 runs on 38 deliveries by Hardik Pandya.
Babar Azam was impressive as he scored 50 runs and was sent out by Siraj while Rizwan scored 49 runs and was sent out by Bumrah. With the dismissal of Babar Azam and Rizwan, Pakistan is down to four wickets scoring 162 runs.
Other batters were sent out with low figures as Indian bowlers proved to attack Pakistan batters with their intense bowling spells. Indian bowlers Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Siraj, Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, and Ravindra Jadeja were able to scalp two wickets each which helped India to fold Pakistan for low scores.
Indian bowlers were terrific during the match as they dismissed 8 wickets, giving only 36 runs, considered one of the Worst batting collapses for Pakistan in ODIs.
With a target of 192, India started their innings where the skipper Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill opened the innings. The young batter who made his World Cup debut in the match was sent out with 16 runs by Shaheen Afridi. With Virat Kohli’s dismissal for 16 runs, India lost two wickets in the 10th over scoring 79 runs.
Rohit Sharma was impressive in the match as he scored 86 runs on 63 deliveries, including 6 boundaries and 6 sixes. He was dismissed by Shaheen Afridi on the 22nd over.
Shreyas Iyer was impressive with his unbeaten 53* runs on 62 deliveries while KL Rahul scored 19 runs. By the end, India scored 192 runs losing 3 wickets in the 31st over.
After their defeat against men in blues, Sourav Ganguly said, “During our time Pakistan was a different team, this is not the type of Pakistan team we used to play. This team can’t handle the pressure during the batting. It will be hard for Pakistan to come back in this World Cup with this batting.”
Apart from that Ganguly lauded the Indian team and the skipper Rohit Sharma for his sensational knock of 86 runs on 63 balls and confirmed the victory for the side.
He smashed back the attack from Pakistan bowlers in all directions. Ganguly was delighted about the Indian team performing well in all departments.
“Rohit played superbly against Pakistan. India’s every department is doing well. Batting, bowling, and fielding is firing together and at the right time.”
The victory against Pakistan helped India to boost their net run rate and they top the table with three wins. They will be facing Bangladesh on October 19 at Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium.
