The Pakistani cricket team's poor performance in the current T20 World Cup 2024 has drawn harsh criticism from cricket enthusiasts and former players.
Thus, Pakistan was knocked out of the competition before the Super 8 round.
In a recent video, the former cricket player Ramiz Raja talked about Pakistan's performance in the games the squad played.
Ramiz said “For Pakistan, this World Cup started on a disaster note and ended on the same note. If you’re dependent on other teams or are relying on weather forecasts, the team will never proceed to the finals or at least to the next stage of the tournament. There are some fundamentals of cricket that you are required to follow and these are never going to change.”
Some players, in Raja's opinion, shouldn't have been participating in the T20 World Cup.
“There isn’t any strong point in the tournament, Naseem Shah I believe performed well as a bowler because he’s naturally a hard-length bowler and his batting was also good against India. I guess overall Naseem Shah is the player who performed well as a bowler as well as a batter. The rest of the players were just fine," Ramiz said.
“Several players are added to the team who perform like a dead beat and just to reinforce that decision you’re sending those players repeatedly because you don’t have any replacement. Leadership is not valued in this team, you are not letting them make any decisions for the team. Retired players are added to the team because they have experience that is required in the World Cup regardless of their attitude towards the captain.
"Until and unless you make decisions based on merit and cricketing sense, this team can't rise again. Looking for sacrificial lambs to save your place is not the way you run cricket."
Raja also paid close attention to the team's batting and bowling statistics against the USA, India, and Canada.
The commentator concluded by saying “In the first match against the USA, the team made so many mistakes, against India as well, the team was not able to score 100 even. Also, in their face-off with Canada, the crowd expected Pakistan to end the game within 14 overs, but the team didn’t take any lessons from the previous matches. They should have bowled at hard length on this pitch, but fast bowlers failed to do so. Pakistan did well in bowling against India and its clash against Canada, bowling was good but the batting was so so.”