Pakistani cricket fans were hurt and angry on Friday after the country’s shock defeat to hosts USA in the T20 World Cup, describing it as a historic nadir for their beloved national sport.
“I’m distraught,” said Raju Jameel, a former banker who was near tears after staying up late to watch the match on a big screen in a Karachi shopping district.
“This is a painful and shameful defeat and there must be a full investigation into it.”
In a thrilling Super Over match in Texas, the USA, competing in the T20 World Cup for the first time, defeated the 2022 finalists and 2009 winners in one of the biggest upsets in the tournament’s history.
“It couldn’t be a bigger shock to Pakistan cricket,” former national team player and cricket commentator Sikander Bakht told Geo TV, the country’s most popular private news channel.
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“It’s like Pakistan beating America in basketball.”
While cricket is the national sport of Pakistan, it receives little attention in the United States, and most Americans are perplexed or indifferent to Pakistan’s historic victory.
Commentators turned to baseball metaphors to explain to domestic audiences the magnitude of the American achievement.
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But Pakistan fans were hunched over screens of all sizes well into the night to celebrate their easy win.
Instead, Friday was a “dark day for Pakistan cricket”, said former batsman Basit Ali, who blamed the defeat on poor player selection by captain Babar Azam.
“He consistently selects players close to him and that is killing Pakistan’s chances,” he told AFP.
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“I don’t think there could be a worse day for our country’s cricket,” added former Pakistan wicketkeeper and batsman Kamran Akmal.
Speaking at one of Islamabad’s markets, 38-year-old Mohammed Amjad Abbasi recounted Pakistan’s decades of international cricket experience in comparison to the up-and-coming U.S. national team.
“The Pakistan team has become weaker,” he told AFP. “I don’t enjoy watching the games anymore.”
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“It’s a shame about their performance. Their final play is always humiliating for us.”
In the Group A match played in Grand Prairie, Texas, near Dallas, both teams scored 159 runs in the usual 20 overs.
The tournament’s co-hosts, the USA, then batted first in the Super Over and scored 18 runs thanks to some panicked overthrows resulting in some wides and runs.
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Pakistan was powerless to match them, and a celebratory mood erupted at the stadium, a 7,000-seat converted minor league baseball stadium outside Dallas, at about 1 a.m. Pakistan time.
“This time it felt like we were the rookie team and the U.S. was a world-class team,” said Dilshad Akhtar, a 54-year-old government employee from Islamabad.
“There’s no way I could play that badly.”
Interest in the game was low in the United States, so it was not televised, but photos of Pakistan’s blunder dominated newspapers across the South Asian nation on Friday morning.
“Disastrous start for tiny America with narrow victory over Pakistan,” said a headline in Dawn, an English-language newspaper considered one of the country’s leading newspapers.
“Babar Azam’s forces were put in a bind right from the start of the election campaign,” the paper said, calling it a “humiliating defeat.”
“The US has surprised a sloppy Pakistan,” reported News International.
Pakistan will next face arch rivals India in a joint tournament with the West Indies in New York on Sunday. If Pakistan makes it that far, the final is scheduled for June 29.
Master Saifullah, 54, of Islamabad, was skeptical that disillusioned fans would return to watching TV.
“To be honest, I just don’t feel like watching them anymore,” he said.
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