Pakistan’s World Cup mission begins today
Pakistan’s T20 World Cup history has been off to a great start. They reached the final in the first edition of this short format World Cup. But losing to India by just 5 runs, Pakistanis won the title in that event. However, Yunus Khan’s team did not fail in the second season. Pakistan won the title for the first time by defeating Sri Lanka by a huge margin of 8 wickets.
Pakistan’s woes in the T20 World Cup began after that. Despite playing 6 more tournaments in 15 years, Pakistan could not convert the first one in 2009 into the second one. The last season was in 2022, but Babar Azam’s team lost the title to England by 5 wickets. That is Pakistan’s only one T20 World Cup title, in 2009.
Pakistan will start the mission of the 9th T20 World Cup today on Thursday. The opponent host country is the United States. This match will be played at the Grand Prairie Cricket Stadium in Dallas.
There is no way to underestimate the United States in this match. Because they lost the series to Bangladesh before the World Cup. Then in the first match of the World Cup, the United States won by 7 wickets on top of Canada’s 194 runs. Again both teams are thirsty for victory.
On the other hand, before coming to the World Cup, Pakistan lost the series against England by 2-0. Now their main goal is to return to victory. Although Babar Azam’s team did not play any preparatory match in this year’s World Cup. They could not even practice in the playground due to rain. However, Pakistan has completed two practice sessions indoors.
Pakistan will not have all-rounder Imad Wasim in the match tonight at 9:30 pm (Bangladesh time). Due to injury, this cricketer will not be able to play the first match of the World Cup.
Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan will open the innings for Pakistan. Because Pakistan did not see any good results by changing the batting order in the last few months. Saim Ayyub, Azam Khan and Shadab Khan were played in the opening. None of them lived up to expectations. That is why Pakistan is trusting Babar-Rizwan duo.
MH/ASM
