Ireland was about to spoil Pakistan’s T20 World Cup 2024 championship match, but Shaheen Shah Afridi saved the day and helped the Men in Green win.
Shaheen stepped up to the plate when things got difficult and saved Pakistan from an embarassing loss in Florida, despite the ace pacer’s contentious removal from captaincy prior to the event.
Shaheen took three wickets in his first over, dismissing Ireland’s top order. At one point, Ireland was down to 32/6 thanks to some excellent help from Mohammad Amir, who also claimed two wickets. But Ireland survived a rough patch thanks to a 34-run partnership knitted together by Gareth Delany and Mark Adair. Ireland scored 106 runs in the first innings, but Imad Wasim of Pakistan dominated in the middle overs, taking three wickets.
In the chase, the squad got off to a respectable start thanks to the efforts of Saim Ayub and Muhammad Rizwan, but things rapidly became tricky. As wickets fell like a house of cards, Pakistan’s middle order faltered once more. But the Men in Green were able to stay in the chase till the very end because Skipper Babar Azam held one hand. They could have fallen considerably sooner if not. Shaheen ultimately smashed two sixes to end the match, which at one point appeared to be challenging for Pakistan.
1. Shaheen Afridi does the magic work
Shaheen was instrumental in Pakistan’s victory, whether it was with the ball or the bat. Considering that he had lost his captaincy going into the competition, the bowler was under tremendous pressure to perform well. Nevertheless, despite his best efforts, Pakistan was unable to advance to the Super 8. Even still, Shaheen should be pleased with his performance throughout the entire competition, let alone versus Ireland.
2. Babar Azam resilience
One end, which Babar clutched, turned out to be quite important. Pakistan was disorganised during the chase, but Babar’s 32* runs off 34 balls proved crucial in helping them cross the finish line.
Also read: Why isn’t Naseem Shah playing in Pakistan vs. Ireland in T20 World Cup 2024 Match 36?
Losing skipper Paul Stirling said:
They put pressure on us and they blew away our top-order of us away and that was the difference. Proud of our fight we showed today, we were 30-5 and managed to get to that score in the end which wasn’t too far away. Thought we will lose by 8 wickets but we fought and that shows we want to play good cricket. It’s about getting the balance right, in T20 cricket you need that tempo, we haven’t got that quite right, we needed to go hard at certain times but couldn’t.
I would rather see us batting like the way we did today than against Canada. It’s been a difficult couple of weeks, we will regroup in the next couple of months and years to come.
Winning skipper Babar Azam said:
We finished well, we took early wickets in the bowling. In the batting we did not do well but we took it home with the tailenders. Bowling was good as conditions suit our fast bowlers. Batting we made a few mistakes, we had chances to win against USA and India. If the team needs me to open, I will and if they need me to bat 3, I will. Whatever the team situation suits I will do it. We have a good bunch of players, a few days rest and then there is a series. We will sit and assess where we went wrong. As a team we are not good in this tournament.
POTM Shaheen Afridi said:
Wicket was supporting for the new ball, we just tried to hit our good areas and strike early. Our plans were a success. My idea is to bowl fuller, we were trying to hit our areas. We didn’t play good cricket which our country demands. There are few areas we need to improve quickly, Champions Trophy is coming. We have to improve and we’ll have to grow as a team. Crowd – they always come and support us, thank you everyone for the support.
It’s tough times but they always come and support us, that’s what we need as a team. That’s my job, I come late (to bat) in the innings, I just hit. The team needed it. Always trying to hit sixes.
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