World Cup 2019: Imad Wasim raises his bat to the crowd after scoring 43 runs at Lord’s

The qualification scenario for Pakistan was clear after England defeated New Zealand. They had to win the toss and smash more than 400 runs to have any chance of beating Bangladesh by more than 300 runs. Sarfaraz Ahmed thankfully won the toss to keep his team alive and opted to bat first which was going to be a no brainer. But strangely, Pakistan didn’t show any intent to get to the magical 400-run mark and only concentrated on keeping wickets in hand.

They lost the momentum only for Imad Wasim to come out and blaze 43 quick runs in the death overs. His knock propelled Pakistan to 315 runs for the loss of nine wickets after 50 overs. But the Men in Green needed a lot more than that to even think of qualifying for the semi-final. With this score, they are now left with an improbable situation defending 7 runs to make it to the top four.

Coming back to the match, Imad played a superb knock but what raised many eyebrows was that he raised his bat to the crowd while going back to the dressing room. Did he score a fifty? No. Is Pakistan winning the match? Not sure. Pakistan are qualifying for the semis? No. Then what was that for? It was completely unnecessary from the left-hander and it was enough to take the sheen off a brilliant knock.

He batted really well to keep Pakistan alive in the tournament in the first innings but many are left perplexed with his actions now.

Here’s the video:

pic.twitter.com/226YsuhF3D

— Cricket Freak (@Jammy_Cricket11) July 5, 2019

Babar misses but Imam gets to his century

Earlier, after Fakhar Zaman endured yet another failure, Babar Azam and Imam-ul-Haq stitched a decent partnership and both of them looked good to score a century. But Mohammed Saifuddin bowled a superb delivery to pin the former in front of the stumps on 96. However, Imam stepped up and scored a brilliant century but many criticised him for not accelerating the run-scoring.

The left-hander soon got out after getting to his ton and Pakistan collapsed a bit after which Imad Wasim’s blitzkrieg helped them go past the 300-run mark.