The wait is over as the biggest of all the matches is back. Yes, we are talking about India vs Pakistan. We all wait for ICC events to witness this epic encounter. Their last clash against each other was in the 2019 World Cup where India became victorious. India are unbeaten against Pakistan in World Cups which is a huge record so far. Now, it would be interesting to see if Babar Azam’s men could break this streak or not.
Despite having a strong side than India in the past, Pakistan have never succeeded against their arch-rivals in World Cups. What could be the reason of their regular defeat? Here we are with some of the reasons:
Inconsistent performance and immediate collapse
If we look at Pakistan’s team on paper, we could hardly find any reason why they can’t win this World Cup. They have a strong bunch of players including sufficient all-rounders. Even in the past, they were brilliant on paper but lacked consistency. 1996 World Cup was one of the biggest examples. They were decent with the ball but leaked runs in the end. The famous over of Waqar Younis in which Ajay Jadeja scored 22 runs was the highlight of this game. They were batting so well but collapsed in over-confidence when Aamir Sohail tried to sledge Venkatesh Prasad. He got out on the next ball and Pakistan couldn’t recover after that.
If we look at the 2003 World Cup, they scored around 275 in the first innings which used to be a match-winning score at that time. And with the attack including Wasim, Waqar and Shoaib, one can easily predict Pakistan to win the game. But the story happened to be different this time as well. They couldn’t stop the maestro Sachin Tendulkar as he hammered 98 in that match, which eventually became the reason for their yet another defeat. India comfortably chased down the target with many balls to spare.
Under-confident Pakistan side
Pakistan are not good under pressure as we can see that from their past encounters. One of the reasons is that they have not been able to beat India in any World Cup game. This much have triggered in their mind all the time. To rebuild confidence, they need to play positive cricket against India. This is a high-intensity encounter and if one cannot handle pressure, then that team has to lose for sure.
Poor fielding
Cricket is not an individual’s game. Every player has to contribute either with the bat, with the ball or in the field. Fielding is the most important part of cricket. We have seen in the past that Pakistan are below average in their fielding especially against India. They dropped crucial catches of Sachin Tendulkar in the 2011 World Cup and the God of Cricket managed to score 85 in that match. Another incident happened in the 2016 T20 World Cup. They fielded so badly that it became quite comfortable for India to win the game.
So, what’s your prediction for the big match?
Image Credits: Cricket Addictor
