Safety-first approach, brittle batting: Why Pakistan froze before India’s ingenuity

COLOMBO: All those who don’t mind a sense of competition in an India-Pakistan game were left scratching their heads by late Sunday at the Premadasa.

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Pakistan have been in Sri Lanka since the start of this World Cup, and have the spinners to make use of the slow pitch conditions here. There is an X-factor bowler in Usman Tariq, who may not be Varun Chakravarthy but has taken wickets in 24 consecutive T20 games and bowls at an economy rate of 5.93 in T20Is.




Still, when it came to the high-pressure India game, it was a meek surrender. It seemed that the Pakistan team had learnt nothing from their hat-trick of Asia Cup defeats and went down even before the game could take the shape of a contest.

Before going into any analysis, let’s accept one thing. India are a superior side than Pakistan and for the neighbours to turn the tables, it will need an upset. But the passionate Pakistan fans are well within their rights to demand that upset once in a blue moon. Like the Indian teams from the mid-80s to the early 2000s -- they won the World Cup games, the Independence Cup in Bangladesh and one Sahara Cup in Toronto even as Pakistan dominated the subcontinental rivalry.


On Sunday, for Pakistan it was a case of being timid to start with. The pitch gets slower and it would have been much easier for Pakistan to set a target and pressurize India with their spinners.

But they got it wrong by choosing to field first and bringing all the pressure on their batting line-up, which is average at best. They should have understood that if it took them a humongous struggle to chase 147 against the Netherlands, they are not good enough to cross the line chasing against India, a side that would not give you a sub-160 target even on their worst batting day.

“I was surprised to see Pakistan choose to field after winning the toss. That’s where they lost half the game,” spin legend R Ashwin said on his youtube show. Pakistan coach Mike Hesson, though, defended his skipper Salman Agha’s decision and felt it was Ishan Kishan’s brilliance that took the game away from them. “The pitch didn’t slow down and it spun less in the second innings. So you have to look at the facts rather than be emotional. It was the quality of the bowling in the first six overs and the way Ishan played that took the game away from us,” Hesson said.

Also, hurting Pakistan cricket is the poor form of paceman Shaheen Afridi. He has been below-par with each successive game, but there’s some reason better known to the team management that he can’t be dropped. On Sunday, he bowled two crucial overs and gave away 31 which, in a low-scoring game, was huge. For India, Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya, the two pacers, bowled five overs conceding 33 and took four wickets. “Afridi cannot bowl the hard length consistently on a pitch like this. And if he was bowling to Ishan, he should have tried something different,” Ashwin said.

The third aspect, is of course the Pakistan batting approach. It’s true that 175 on a slow pitch was akin to a 225 on any Indian track. Still keeping wickets towards the end would have given Pakistan a fighting chance at the back end.

Former Pakistan captain Ramiz Raja, on his show said that he finds it hard to fathom the approach of the Pakistani team. “They learnt nothing from their Asia Cup losses. They keep trying the slam bang approach, which cannot work for them against a team as skilled as this India. But no player is ready to take the game deep,” Rameez pointed out.

But for the negatives, Pakistan can still qualify for the Super-8s with a win against Namibia on Wednesday. They will continue to play in Colombo if they go that far and the fans will hope against hope that the opposition teams will not be as lethal as India.


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