Former Pakistan captain Ramiz Raja has slammed Babar Azam and Co. for lacking game awareness as they post a 271-run target against South Africa in the 26th game of the ICC Men's ODI World Cup 2023.
Ex-PCB Chairman is of the opinion that Pakistan tailenders were mindless and they didn't know that they had to play complete 50 overs.
Pakistan were bowled out for 46.4 overs and didn't play the quota of 50 overs.
"Wickets went down and the tailenders have been absolutely mindless of the fact that they need to play out 50 overs," Ramiz said.
"Nawaz trying a strike when it was not on and that has been the story of Pakistan in this World Cup - not good enough game-awareness," he added.
Regarding Pakistan's innings, they lost their openers – Abdullah Shafique (9) and Imamul Haq (12) – for cheap scores as Marco Jansen struck twice to bring the team under pressure.
Skipper Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan tried to build a partnership in order to boost the total but Gerald Coetzee dismissed the latter for 31. The Pakistan captain was removed for 50 and Iftikhar Ahmed fell for 21 by Tabraiz Shamsi.
Saud Shakeel (52) and Shadab Khan (43) took the aggressive route and put scores on the board with fiery boundaries. After their removal, Mohammad Nawaz tried to keep up the momentum so a reasonable total could be built against the Proteas. However, he pulled poorly on Jansen’s delivery and was caught on the off side.
Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first against South Africa in the ICC World Cup 2023 fixture today at MA Chidambaram Stadium.
Pakistan made two changes to the team. Nawaz and Wasim Jnr came to the side in place of Hasan Ali and Usama Mir.
With three consecutive defeats, Pakistan are eager to roar back into the competition when they play South Africa in their sixth match of the mega event.
The Green Shirts started the World Cup campaign with wins over the Netherlands and Sri Lanka in Hyderabad, but since have faced three successive defeats. In their last match, Afghanistan shocked Pakistan by eight wickets.