Pakistan has been the talk of the town ever since the T20 World Cup 2021 commenced last month. The green shirts won all four of their opening matches with clinical finesse. Having said that, it would be premature to assume that the trophy is coming, and we have listed five reasons explaining why:
1- The English team’s might
When you put Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and New Zealand together in the same group, it creates great excitement and sensationalism but it also overshadows everything else.
For example, those who have already handed the trophy to Pakistan need to be reminded that there is another group in the running encompassing great teams.
England happens to be the strongest contender from the aforementioned group. England will battle against Pakistan at some point provided both teams qualify for the upcoming stages in the competition.
Pakistan already has a poor T20 record against the English team as it has bagged only six out of the twenty-two matches played against England. One reason why Pakistani fans should not celebrate just yet.
2- The Kangaroos
Pakistan has never been able to beat Australia in the knockout rounds of the one-day and T20 World Cups alike. In 2010, Pakistan gave a target of 191 to Australia which struggled to chase the target. However, towards the end of the match, Michael Hussey smashed sixes out of nowhere maintaining Australia’s record against Pakistan.
At present, the Australian team seems like a much easier target than England. However, let’s not overlook the fact that Australia in the world of cricket is like the Germany of football. Both the teams cannot be underestimated when it comes to world cups regardless of their form or who their opposition is.
3- The case of peaking too early
Many great teams have fallen prey to this as they start out strong but eventually fizzle out towards the end of the tournament.
Pakistan has been on a winning streak so far but the victories will be useless if the team is unable to maintain the results in the semis or the finals.
Let’s hope that the green shirts are yet to give their best performance of the tournament.
4- There is a thing called having a perspective
The flawless victory against India created such an ecstatic feeling that we have overlooked the fact that the wins against New Zealand and Afghanistan were fiercely fought, and Asif Ali’s exceptional sixes came to our rescue.
Even in the match against the debuting Namibia, Pakistan’s bowling struggled at some point. Hence, if we choose to not let the victory streak blind us, we would see that the close wins over less impressive teams should be concerning for us.
5- The two-men show
Out of the total 624 runs scored by team Pakistan in their four matches, a whopping 402 runs have been scored by Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan. This means 64% of Pakistan’s runs have been made by just the two openers.
The questions we cannot ignore are that in case of an unlucky shot or an unplayable ball leading to early exits of Azam and Rizwan, will the remaining battling unit be able to bear the burden of scoring well?
