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Pakistan captain Babar Azam was distort after the Men in Green suffered a historic eight-wicket defeat to Afghanistan in the ICC ODI World Cup 2023. Batting first, the Pakistani batters had a decent performance as they posted 282 runs with crucial knocks by Azam, Abdullah Shafique, Iftikhar Ahmed and Shadab Khan.
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But in the second innings, Pakistan's bowling attack had a disappointing effort as Afghanistan's openers posted a massive 130-run stand. Despite getting through Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran, Pakistan failed to get any other breakthrough and suffered a colossal defeat.
Talking about this effort in the post-match interview, Babar Azam stressed on how the bowling attack failed to perform in the middle overs and similarly criticized the other departments. He said, "This hurts us. We had a good total. In the bowling, we weren't up to the mark as we are not taking wickets in the middle overs."
"If you are not good in even one department, then you'll lose the game. We didn't stop boundaries and gave away runs, that cost us. Bowling - we started well, in the middle overs, we needed wickets but we couldn't take any."
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Further, Babar Azam praised the Afghan team for their performance. He said, "All credit to Afghanistan the way they played in all three departments. That's why they won. We are not playing good cricket in bowling and fielding. We'll try our best in the next match. We didn't hit the lengths in the middle overs, especially our spinners. We couldn't put pressure on the batters."
