Former Pakistani cricketer Basit Ali has criticised theIndian batters for their slow batting against England in the World Cup matchwhich they lost by 31 runs in Birmingham on Sunday.
Chasing 338, Indian batters started off slowly and could notmanage to up the ante as and when required and ended up scoring 306/5 in theirallotted 50 overs, thus registering their first defeat in the ongoingtournament.
Speaking to a Pakistani news channel after India’s defeat,Ali said: “If you are chasing 337 runs and in the first 10 overs you onlymake 28 runs in which two fielders are in the outer circle, then according tome India played those 10 overs really bad.”
“They had a picnic on the field. The batsmen were justmaking sure they were in good form. Rohit Sharma scored a century at his owntime, Virat Kohli score his 66 so leisurely. It was just Pandya who was hittingand scored 45 off 33 balls,” added Ali, who has played 19 Tests and 50ODIs for Pakistan.
Before the England match, Ali had claimed that the Men inBlue might perform badly and intentionally lose their matches againstBangladesh and Sri Lanka.
With England’s win, Pakistan’s chances of making it to thesemifinals are left in a spot. They now need to win their last game againstBangladesh (Friday) and hope that New Zealand beat the Three Lions in theirlast encounter on Wednesday so that the Green Brigade can enter the knockoutstage.