T20 World Cup 2024: Pakistan put unwanted pressure on themselves in India loss – Coach Gary Kirsten

Pakistan head coach Gary Kirsten feels his team put unwanted pressure on themselves after they suffered a six-run loss against arch-rivals India at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, New York on Sunday.

While chasing a below-par score of 120 runs, Pakistan was restricted to 113-7 by the Indian bowlers. Pakistan came up with a brilliant bowling display after winning the toss but they could not get the job done with the bat.

The Babar Azam-led was in a winning position at 57-1 after 10 overs as they had the wickets in hand and the required rate was almost run-a-ball. However, Pakistan veered off the track as they kept losing regular wickets and played too many dot balls.

The Pakistan batters failed to rotate the strike at regular intervals and put themselves under the pump. Jasprit Bumrah wreaked havoc as the gun fast bowler returned with impressive figures of 3-14 in his quota of four overs. Mohammad Rizwan top scored with 31 but the right-hander also consumed 44 balls.

Kirsten feels the Pakistan batters could not make the most of their experience at the top level.

“You are pretty much spot-on. These guys are all international players and they’re aware that when they’re not performing at their best that there’s going to be pressure put on them. That’s understandable, but a lot of these guys have played a lot of T20 cricket around the world over many, many years and it’s really up to them to decide how they’re going to take their games forward,” said Kirsten in the post-match press conference.

The former South African opener feels his team lost the plot in the last five overs and it led to their downfall in the end.

“So, the message from all of us was to look for the odd boundary, try and capitalise on the loose balls and make sure that you can get as many ones as you can through the innings. And I thought we did that brilliantly for 15 overs. We kept it at a run a ball, and then we lost wickets and then we stopped scoring ones and then we were looking for boundaries and once you’ve got to that point it was always going to be hard. So, the message was to do what we executed on for 15 overs,” said Kirsten.

Pakistan will next take on Canada at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, New York on Tuesday.