The much-hyped clash between India and Pakistan at the 2023 Cricket World Cup was virtually a one-sided affair with the Rohit Sharma-led hosts emerging victorious in Ahmedabad on Saturday. India were the dominant side, both in bowling and batting, while Babar Azam’s Pakistan showed no courage to put up a fight. Batting first, Pakistan were all out for 191, with the likes of Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav picking two wickets each. India, boosted by brilliant innings from Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer, reached the target with ease.
However, after the match concluded, Pakistan team director Mickey Arthur gave a unique response. He said the atmosphere at the Narendra Modi Stadium did not give the feeling that it was an ‘ICC event’.
Arthur said, “Look, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. To be honest, it didn’t seem like an ICC event. It looked like a bilateral series; it looked like a BCCI event. I didn’t.” I don’t hear ‘Dil Dil Pakistan’ too much on the microphones tonight.” Arthur, however, said the lack of crowd support could not be an excuse for the team’s heavy loss to India.
“So yes, that does play a role, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse because for us it was about living the moment, it was about the next ball and it was about how we were going to fight the Indian.” , the Indian players tonight,” he added.
‘Dil Dil Pakistan’ is a popular song sung by the famous group Vital Signs led by late Junaid Jamshed.
According to a report in ESPNCricinfo, ICC has now responded to the comments.
ICC chairman Greg Barclay apparently played down the criticism. “Every event we have, there’s always criticism from different angles,” Barclay told the release when asked to respond to Arthur’s comments.
“Things that we might take away and try to work on, try to do better… so this event is alone [at] the start. Let’s see how the whole thing plays out and we’ll go away and we’ll look at what could change, what we can do better, how we can improve the World Cups and the general offering around cricket.
“We’ll just take it as it happens, until the end of the event. I’m satisfied that it will still be an excellent World Cup.”
Arthur, meanwhile, admitted that Pakistan did not play fearless cricket that day.
“We were a little bit timid tonight in terms of our overall performance. I would have liked to have seen us take the game a little bit more in stride. It’s a huge event, as we know, but I think we’re just a little bit in Our shells have sunk in. little,” said Arthur.
With PTI inputs
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