It is considered typical of the Pakistani cricket team to drag things to the edge of defeat only to pull out a victory. Rarer are the cases where the tiger looks like it has its prey in its jaws only for it to somehow lose its quarry. This is basically what happened the past Saturday night. While the country won its Super 8 clash against Sri Lanka, the margin of victory was not wide enough to secure survival in the 2026 T20 World Cup. It feels odd to crash out of a major tournament with a win, but that is the position Pakistan’s loss to England and the rain cancelling the match against New Zealand put it in. In order to go through, they needed England to beat New Zealand, which they did, and to beat Sri Lanka by a margin that would lift their net run rate above that of the Kiwis. For a while, it seemed like the boys in green could actually make this happen. The opening pair of Sahibzada Farhan and Fakhar Zaman put up a 176-run stand.
With four overs left and plenty of wickets in hand, Pakistan seemed poised to snatch survival from the jaws of an exit yet again. However, Pakistan’s familiar frailties would kick in after Zaman’s dismissal. The middle order collapsed. While the performance of the opening pair deserved a mammoth, unassailable total of around 240 runs, Pakistan ended its innings with 212. But even with this relatively disappointing total, survival was not totally out of reach. Pakistan needed to restrict Sri Lanka to 147 to secure a semi-final berth. Sadly, an unbeaten 76 runs from 31 balls from Sri Lankan captain Dasun Shanaka almost took Sri Lanka to victory. They eventually ran out of overs at 207 runs, but still had four wickets in hand, which speaks to how disappointing the bowlers were.
This is now the fourth successive ICC event where Pakistan have failed to reach the semi-finals and the same shortcomings crop up at every tournament. The team struggles to excel with both bat and ball in the same game, it often fails to read the pitch properly when winning tosses, the middle-order struggles under pressure and the team relies too much on individualistic brilliance rather than systemic excellence. A consensus is now emerging that Pakistan is behind the times when it comes to modern cricket. Our players seem to struggle with the pace of the game and do not seem particularly well-drilled. If we look at the top sides today, they will have teams highly specialised for the different formats of the game and each player will have a very good idea of what their role is. Our sides seem to lack this strategic clarity. Victories in today’s cricket are as much about planning and mental resilience as they are about talent. While reports are now emerging of the PCB weighing hefty fines on the players for their poor performances, it is unclear how this will help things. Players already have financial incentives to not play poorly, but that does not always lead to success.
