Kolkata (West Bengal): Former Pakistan cricket skipper and coach Mushtaq Mohammad came down heavily on Pakistan's below-par performance against the mighty Indians in the T20 World Cup fixture at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in the USA late on Sunday night.
Despite bowling out the fancied Indian batting line-up for a paltry 119 with six balls to spare, the neighbours could only manage 113 for 7 in their allotted 20 overs thanks to a poor batting display on a difficult drop-in surface dished out for the murky clash.
The 80-year-old former Pakistan captain was more critical of Pakistan's strategy vis-à-vis India's. "India didn't win it... Pakistan lost it. And lost it badly...Shameful," Mushtaq told ETV Bharat in an exclusive interaction on Monday morning.
Knives are out in Pakistan cricket after the team's show in the recent tournaments. In the wake of criticism back home following the Babar Azam-led team's unprecedented 5-wicket defeat against Ireland earlier this month, this loss against India galvanised the critics to blame the unit for all-round failures.
Explaining Pakistan's loss, Mushtaq said that both teams didn't play a high-quality game, but India prevailed as they were marginally better. "Both sides played poor cricket in yesterday's murky clash, but in the end, Pakistan came second among the two," the Pakistan coach in the 1999 ICC ODI World Cup said with much ado.
The octogenarian, who is currently based in Birmingham, England couldn't hide his disappointment after yet another loss to arch-rivals India in ICC tournaments. For the record, India are ahead 15-1 against Pakistan in ICC tournaments, and in T20 internationals the tally is 7-1 in favour of the Men in Blue.
Mushtaq took potshots mainly at the batters for offering rash shots that led to the massive debacle. "Mohammad Rizwan, Fakhar Zaman, Shadab Khan and all others played reckless shots to throw their wickets. This wasn't expected from the lot...It's really a shameful performance by Pakistan," the skipper with 57 Test matches under his belt said without mincing his words.
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