World Cup 2019: Shoaib Akhar thinks India didn’t bat well in the semis

Team India, one of the strong favourites in the World Cup 2019, played so well throughout. They looked dominant in the league stages and it seemed as if they’d make it into the final easily. However, about 45 minutes of bad batting let the team down and knocked them out of the tournament. After the undesirable outcome, former Pakistan bowler Shoaib Akhtar seemed to be disappointed with this performance as well.

The Men in Blue lost three quick wickets early in the innings that of their three best batsmen and were brought down to 5/3 with the first hour of play. Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul – all scored 1 run each and walked back to the pavilion in the first few overs to add pressure on the rest of the batting. India did fight back with Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya playing some good cricket. However, they yet again lost wickets at the wrong time in the match and were restricted to 92/6.

At this stage, MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja played great knocks. Both of them got to half-centuries with the latter being the aggressor. They brought India back into the game and instilled great hopes in the fans. 10 runs an over in the last five seemed to be a doable task. However, Jadeja got out in the 48th over of the game. MS Dhoni was soon run-out pushing India back. With these two batsmen gone, there wasn’t much left and the team lost the game by 18 runs. New Zealand successfully made it into their second consecutive World Cup final with this win.

Shoaib Akhtar feels this is a big upset

Shoaib Akhtar didn’t enjoy the batting performance put up by Team India. The ‘Rawalpindi Express’, in his tweet, wrote that it was a resilient effort from MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja. He opined that this duo almost brought India back into the game. But that wasn’t to be the case as India was bowled out for 221 in 49.3 overs. Akhtar wrote that this was a huge upset.

“India did not bat well enough to reach the final. A resilient effort by Jadeja & Dhoni. They almost brought India back into the game. So a big upset, New Zealand goes through to final, India knocked out.#INDvsNZ #CWC19 #semifinal,” he wrote in his tweet after the game.

India did not bat well enough to reach the final. A resilient effort by Jadeja & Dhoni. They almost brought India back into the game.
So a big upset, New Zealand goes through to final, India knocked out. #INDvsNZ #CWC19 #semifinal

— Shoaib Akhtar (@shoaib100mph) July 10, 2019