India start as favorites for Sunday match as Pakistan to join India in Big match semi final
It’s right from the start of the Oct 20, Friday’s match, Pakistan looked uncomfortable except during the toss. But Shaheen Afridi broke the run-flow in the end by picking 5 wickets. Haris Rauf joined him and he picked 3 wickets. However, 368 looked tough just in the end, and Pakistan did not chase down 360 plus target.
Earlier, it was Pakistan, which created history by chasing 346 in Hyderabad, this 2023 world cup in India. Again a super chase was on the cards, a little while later, which involves Pakistan again and Pakistan’s main bowler Afridi and the top order batters. Australia did wonderfully well to keep taking wickets, and that was the result, which went in favor of Aussies as they’re now at no 4 position. However, on Oct 22, Sunday, India start as favorites to play New Zealand, and on Monday, Pakistan to play Afghanistan.
Assessing Pakistan’s Performance
Meanwhile, just exclude Babar Azam here, everyone in the middle and top order, played some good innings. Adam Zampa bowled an ordinary ball, and Babar pulled it hard, but not so high in the air. Aussie captain Pat Cummins took a very good catch, diving to his right-side. Babar was shocked yet again for his dismal performance. That was it, but the game was not over, as only in the end few poor shots played by Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, and then Australia pushed Pakistan down in deep in trouble.
Yet, if India start as favorites again to win 5 out of 5. There will be more talks for an India, Pakistan semi-final Big match to be played. How this would happen?. India and Pakistan to start as the favorites in their next 3-5 matches. Why so?. This is so because India didn’t played a single game poorly, so far. The likely semi-finalists four would be India, South Africa, New Zealand, and Pakistan.
But India Start As Favorites
Pakistan also played some good cricket except their fielding power, which pushed Pakistan down. This makes sense since India start as favorites, India would be on top of the table. Pakistan would try their best to regain their lost points table’s no 4 position. In the semi-finals, no 1 would play no 4. No 2 will play no 3.
Let’s know the Bangalore pitch, where Pakistan played Australia, a very dry surface and hard, yet captain Babar Azam chose to field by winning the toss. Not just bowling was poor, but including the captaincy, fielding was just a poor show. However, he had no hesitation to field first, and so things were so cute to begin with, as couple of catches dropped and more misfields and drop catches let Australia to smash Pakistan bowlers all around the park to score at a run-rate of over 8 and they reached the 100 run mark in just about 12 overs.
However, the projected score looked as if Australia could easily score more than 430, but that was what Pakistan did. Pakistan did a tremendous job to restrict Australia. These are the positives that Babar Azam and his men should take, and play every match from here on to stay at least on no 4 position. Don’t forget, since India start as favorites, for every match, there would be a Big game coming up.
The Big game would be another crowd puller. Pakistan to play India in the semi-final, the Big match if not and surely not the final. It’s in conclusion that there’s very less likelyhood that Pakistan could reach the final, but the semi-finals, surely. So, India and Pakistan, yet another crowd pulling match will be coming up. So, it’s not too early to say.
