On Saturday, Pakistan batsman Shan Masood hailed his team’s perseverance in coming back from losing their first two Twenty20 World Cup games to be in contention for a spot in the semifinals.
To advance to the final four, Captain Babar Azam’s team must defeat Bangladesh in their final Super 12 match on Sunday in Adelaide and hope that other outcomes go their way.
Prior to regaining form and thrashing South Africa on Thursday in a thrilling, rain-affected encounter in Sydney, Pakistan endured bitter losses to archrivals India and Zimbabwe.
Masood told reporters, “The timing of the losses proved costly for us because we are still not in that top two position.”
“However, we still have hope. We learn hard lessons from life, and this was one of them. The boys’ morale suffered, and they lost sleep as a result of the incident. The best thing that can come out of failure is that you learn from your mistakes, and the way we handled ourselves after those losses revealed our character and was a major thing. If we approach it objectively, we can see that the team has improved since their defeat against Zimbabwe.
In the competitive Group 2 standings, Pakistan, which is now third, has a chance to advance if India loses against Zimbabwe in the last league game on Sunday. If South Africa loses to the Netherlands or if the game is a washout, they are still eligible.
Masood claimed that Pakistan’s response to being in trouble at 43-4, fighting back to post 185-9 against South Africa, and then winning by 33 runs using the DLS system had boosted team spirit.
“In a nice mood. Although South Africa initially controlled the match, we battled back and bowled effectively, maintaining our momentum even after the rain break “Masood stated.
“We will thus concentrate on obtaining two points from the Bangladesh game, which is within our control. In this bunch, there will always be hope until the final ball is bowled.”
If Bangladesh defeats Pakistan at the Adelaide Oval, they will have a limited chance of moving on after close victories against the Netherlands and Zimbabwe.
The Tigers, who are tied with Pakistan at four points but have a much lower run-rate, gave India a scare in their most recent game, which was decided by the DLS method.
But technical advisor Sridharan Sriram stated he is pleased with the performance his team has made in this competition.
According to Sriram, this is Bangladesh’s finest T20 World Cup performance ever.
“We’ve never won two games in Super 12s in the history of Bangladesh cricket, so I think the boys should feel happy of themselves.”
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