ICC Men’s World Cup 2023: What lies ahead for Pakistan after crushing defeat against Afghanistan?

To be a Pakistani cricket fan is like having a romance one day and heartbreak the next day. That’s how their journey has been in this World Cup so far. They were one of the favorites before the Asia Cup began but an injury to their fast bowler Naseem Shah, lack of form of their main spinner Shadab Khan, and most importantly Babar Azam not firing with the bat has left the team at the cusp of yet another ODI World cup exist before the semifinals.

Pakistan was on a high being the number one ODI team and were confident coming into the Asia Cup. They started well against India in the first game reducing them to 40/4 but completely lost their way after. They got hammered by India in the second game and were out of the Asia Cup right after their defeat from Sri Lanka in the last game to not make it to the finals. But what hurt them more was the injury to their premium fast bowler Naseem Shah which made him miss the World Cup.

They began the World Cup with two wins on the trot especially the second game against Sri Lanka where they chased down a record 344 the fans hoped again and a lot of pundits predicted they would make it to the last four. But things had gone haywire after, yet another humiliating loss at the hands of their arch-rivals India at Ahmedabad. 

The Pakistan team has once again gone downhill. They lost to Australia conceding 370 runs and their fielding was the reason which let them down. And then the worst had to come against Afghanistan. Inspite of putting up 280 batting first, their bowlers could not defend and lost by eight wickets to almost knock them out of the World Cup.

Now with four games left against South Africa, New Zealand, England, and Bangladesh; Pakistan needs to win all their remaining games to reach 12 points to have a chance to make it to the knockout out which looks tough as the team is very low on confidence and the body language of the players looked very poor with the shoulders down. 

The social media has gone after the players and trolled them especially captain Babar Azam who is the number one ODI player in the world. They have been harsh with the captain saying Babar Azam is not able to match Virat Kohli’s chasing skills and is not able to play in pressure games. 

Pakistan’s next game is against in-form South Africa again in Chennai and the fans will hope they can get back to winning ways.

In the 2019 World Cup, they won their last four games but fell short because of a poor net run rate, that’s team Pakistan. You just can’t stop loving those who break your heart time and again.