“Even if Shaheen Afridi wasn’t injured, England would have chased the target down,” Sunil Gavaskar reckons Pakistan’s batting was the reason they lost T20 World Cup final

The former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar is of the view that Pakistan lost the final of the T20 World Cup 2022 because of their batting and even if Shaheen Afridi hadn’t gotten injured in the latter stages of the game, they might still not have won.

Pakistan batted first in the final on a difficult MCG surface where the par seemed to be round about 155-160, but Pakistan fell about 20 runs short of the par score as they could put only 137 runs on the board. However, despite not scoring enough runs while batting first, Pakistan had got the game down to an equation where England needed to score at 8 runs an over in the last 5 overs.

Shaheen Afridi had to bowl 2 out of the last 5 overs, but while taking the catch of Harry Brook, Shaheen took a blow to his right knee again, the same knee which had troubled him for the past many months and had kept him out of the game as well. Just as Shaheen bowled the first ball of his third over, he realized his injury was serious and he couldn’t continue further.

Shaheen Afridi could bowl just one delivery in his third over before he had to go off the field

The remaining part of Shaheen’s over was completed by Iftikhar and England got a couple of boundaries in that over. Analyzing the game at the conclusion of it, Sunil Gavaskar said Shaheen might have taken a wicket or two if he would have been fit to complete his quota of overs, but England’s batting lineup was so deep that they would have chased the target down even if Shaheen hadn’t got injured.

Sunil Gavaskar said that the required run rate was in control of England when the last phase of the game started and Pakistan will have to reflect on their batting when they look back at this game.