{"id":2616,"date":"2026-02-17T04:28:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T04:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/?p=2616"},"modified":"2026-02-17T04:28:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T04:28:21","slug":"128447568-cms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/?p=2616","title":{"rendered":"Safety-first approach, brittle batting: Why Pakistan froze before India\u2019s ingenuity | Cricket News – The Times of India"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"Safety-first<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Hardik Pandya, right, celebrates with teammate Ishan Kishan the wicket of Pakistan’s Sahibzada Farhan. (AP Photo)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

COLOMBO: All those who don\u2019t mind a sense of competition in an India-Pakistan game were left scratching their heads by late Sunday at the Premadasa.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. <\/span>SUBSCRIBE NOW!<\/a>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. <\/p>\n

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Mike Hesson press conference: ‘Ishan took the game away from us’ after India beat Pakistan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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Poll<\/p>\n

What was the main reason for Pakistan’s loss against India?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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.\u201cI was surprised to see Pakistan choose to field after winning the toss. That\u2019s where they lost half the game,\u201d spin legend R Ashwin said on his youtube show. Pakistan coach Mike Hesson, though, defended his skipper Salman Agha\u2019s decision and felt it was Ishan Kishan\u2019s brilliance that took the game away from them. \u201cThe pitch didn\u2019t 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,\u201d 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\u2019s some reason better known to the team management that he can\u2019t 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. \u201cAfridi cannot bowl the hard length consistently on a pitch like this. And if he was bowling to Ishan, he should have tried something different,\u201d Ashwin said.The third aspect, is of course the Pakistan batting approach. It\u2019s 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. \u201cThey 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,\u201d 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.<\/div>\n\n

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Hardik Pandya, right, celebrates with teammate Ishan Kishan the wicket of Pakistan’s Sahibzada Farhan. (AP…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7461,6479,7456,2917,3193,1123,7458,7460,7459,7457],"class_list":["post-2616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-asia-cup-cricket-history","tag-colombo-cricket-match","tag-india-vs-pakistan-match","tag-ishan-kishan-batting","tag-pakistan-cricket","tag-pakistan-cricket-board","tag-pakistan-super-8-qualification","tag-shaheen-afridi-performance","tag-usman-tariq-bowling-statistics","tag-world-cup-cricket-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}