Published: Mar 21, 2015, 06:31 PM (IST)
Edited: Mar 21, 2015, 06:31 PM (IST)
Pakistan suffered a comprehensive defeat in the hands of Australia in the quarter-finals of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 on Friday at Adelaide. This loss not only evoked a harsh reaction from the fans but also saw former Pakistani cricketers slam the side’s performance. A report from PTI quoted several ex-cricketers showering their dissatisfaction on the Pakistani side. (READ: Australia vs Pakistan, third quarter-final match in Adelaide in caricatures)
Mohammad Yousuf: It is a pity that Misbah even after remaining captain for five years couldn’t decide upon his squad properly for the World Cup. This is what let us down today.
One would have thought that for such an important event Misbah and the selectors would have been clear about the players they wanted. But on the contrary we had two players going for the World Cup Rahat Ali and Sohail Khan who were not even named in the original 30 member preliminary squad.
Aamir Sohail: Let us be honest that this team was capable of only reaching the quarter-finals and this defeat is not a surprise. The batting let us down even though we won the toss. Some of the shot selection was atrocious and there was no game plan from our batters.
Rashid Latif: The management made crucial mistakes and that coupled with injuries to key players really hit us hard. Some of the selection decisions were strange to me. Definitely when the team returns home the board needs to sit down and plan well for the future. Don’t blame the system blame the individuals who take these wrong decisions.
Abdul Qadir: The selection of the team was not fair and secondly during the tournament, the playing XIs were also not selected on merit and sensibly and it hurt the team.
Saeed Ajmal: The batsmen let us down badly and the shot selection by some of them was horrific. I don’t know what Umar Akmal or Sohaib Maqsood did and even Afridi should have hung on for a while.
Sarfraz Nawaz: The team management wanted these two players to remain in Australia with the team and train with them so that one of them could replace Mohammad Irfan immediately but the PCB refused to send the players. When the board can squander money on useless projects why did they object to something which was good for the team.
