Pakistan got it totally wrong against India in 2019 World Cup: Waqar Younis

Former Pakistan captain and coach Waqar Younis is known for his sharp cricketing vision and he displays the same as a cricket expert these days. During his mighty career, he along with the ‘sultan of swing’ Wasim Akram was a nightmare to the opposition batsmen.

He was part of several memorable victories over arch-rivals India but he was also part of teams that lost to India in the 1996 and 2003 editions of the World Cup. He was also the coach of the Pakistan team which lost to India in the semi-finals of the 2011 World cup tournament, where India successfully managed to clinch the ‘World Champions’ title.

India enjoys a special 7-0 record against the neighbors in the World Cup, a statistic that is often used by Indian fans to showcase their team’s dominance. The loss to India in the 2019 World Cup is the latest of those defeats speaking of which Waqar said poor decision-making, starting with the toss, cost his side the group stage match against the arch-rivals.

“I think Pakistan got it totally wrong against India in 2019 starting right from the toss. I think they were hoping that the pitch will do a lot more and they will get early wickets which will put India under pressure,” Waqar said on ‘Q20’, speaking to Cricket fans presented by ‘GloFans’ Twitter handle.

It was difficult to stop the Indian batsmen: Waqar Younis

India batted first and posted a huge total of 336 runs on the board credits to Rohit Sharma (140) and KL Rahul (57) who shared a 136-run opening stand between them. After the dismissal of KL Rahul, Rohit paired up with Virat Kohli (77) and continued the dominance over the Pakistani bowlers and posted a massive total for which Pakistan had no answers.

“But, India had very seasoned openers and they did not really let the bowlers settle. And, the pitch did not really do much and once they get going it was very difficult to stop them. They piled up so many runs to which Pakistan had no answers at all,” he said.

He was of the opinion that they should have batted first after winning the toss.”So, I think it was a silly mistake when, to begin with, winning the toss and asking India to bat because batting first on that pitch was the way to go and it did not really help Pakistan that day and India was too good, way too good,” he further added.

While there were many Incredible performances between both the teams in the World cup, he feels that Sachin’s iconic knock of 98 is one of the greatest of all time. “That innings! Probably even if you would ask Sachin about this he might also say the same thing, that it was probably one of his best innings.”

He added by saying that the way Sachin faced Shoaib Akhtar, Wasim, and him under pressure and the way he attacked and got early runs, was amazing, and termed it as one of the best innings he has ever seen.