Defeat from Pakistan in Asia Cup 2022 Super 4 match held on 4th September has come as a jolt, highly unwelcoming by the entire cricket fraternity, netizens are miffed and fans are heartbroken!
We spoke to Madan Lal, the legend from the 1983 World Cup winning squad, who in a previous interview with us once confessed “20-20 offers fast-paced tempo, big-hitting, power play, and all the ingredients of a Big Starry League which attracts youth the most but World Cup is the real deal. The heart is inconsequential without the heartbeat!”
He too looked a bit disappointed “These 20 -20 games is very unpredictable, every ball every catch is unpredictable, I think we missed on that only. We made a good start, but we lost in the middle. Yesterday, it was all due to an unplanned ‘Middle Order Game’. There were brighter chances to win. We would have played in a little bit more controlled manner, next time we would have to aim at scoring not less than 290-300 runs.”
He expressed further “According to me, the middle order didn’t get runs at all. Batting was done in an unplanned way. Shots which batsmen played, were not at all necessary, after playing six-seven overs, they would have looked at the score board and then would have taken decision on playing big long shots, always hitting the ball in the air is not advisable and sensible, there is always a chance of getting out. They would have patiently dealt with last overs.”
While discussing the match he made a valid point, “Somehow they (the team) lacked a good pacer, one pacer should have been there, and it should be a mandate, I am clueless why selectors didn’t provide a good pacer. it was highly visible that we are short of one.”
On Arshdeep Singh, who dropped a crucial catch in the 18th over and is being trolled brutally since the match happened, the legend responded “I will not criticise the young kid, yes, of course, he would have not missed on that important catch but if it’s so then you have to criticise everybody, in that context even those 19 runs of Bhuvneshwar Kumar were unacceptable. It all ended when Bhuvneshwar gave away 19 runs in the 19th over with only seven left off, Arshdeep’s final over which Pakistan got with a ball to spare. So, you cannot blame one, it’s always a team work and it’s always a team which is to be blamed.”
Pacifying 20-20 star-studded batsman Hardik Pandya’s performance Madan Lal said “He is our main man; we can’t be after his life. Our main flaw was that we were short of one baller, one pacer should have been there. Automatically giving space to the Mainstream to focus more on their expertise. We had only five ballers including Hardik, so Deepak Hooda also would have been asked to do one or three overs.”
“If Umesh Yadav was unwell, the selectors would have opted for some other pacer. As a result, all struggled and got exhausted. Well, it cannot be changed now but let’s draw learnings from the match and improvise on the structuring of the team first.”