Former Pakistan Captain Inzamam-Ul-Haq has alleged that Indian Team was ‘scared’ and ‘under pressure’ even before the match against Pakistan in the tournament of World Cup 2021 in Dubai. India lost the match with 10 wickets which became India’s first-ever defeat against Pakistan in all World Cup matches in different formats.
The former player pointed that the captain Virat Kohli seemed under pressure in the toss interview and the Indian team could not cope with the pressure after defeat which led to their defeat against New Zealand in their next match. However they won against three matches against Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia but that was not enough to make their way to the semi-finals.
He said, “I feel the Indians were scared even before the match started. Their body language, if you see Virat Kohli and Babar Azam’s interview at the toss, you could sense who was under pressure.”
He added, “Our team’s body language was much better than theirs. It wasn’t that India were under pressure after Rohit Sharma’s dismissal. Sharma himself was under pressure. It was evident that they all were under pressure even before the match began.”
Pakistan’s third highest run-scorer in Test matches pointed to the fact that “Indian team never plays the way they did. They are a good T20 team, there is no doubt about it. If you look at their performance in the last 2-3 years, they were the favourites. But that India-Pakistan match put so much pressure on them that there was no looking back.”
Inzamam concluded, “Their feet weren’t moving at all. After losing to Pakistan, they were handed so much criticism and there was a 3-4 day break. The poor guys couldn’t even play Santner and Sodhi. They are such good players of spin. That pressure mounted on them.”
