Persistent rain on Saturday washed out a thrilling contest between arch-rivals India and Pakistan at the Pallekele International Stadium as no contest was witnessed after Rohit Sharma-led Men in Blue were folded for 266 runs in 48.5 overs. While Pakistan moved to the Super Four after sharing a point from the washed out clash, former India cricketer Irfan Pathan was not at all impressed with Babar Azam’s captaincy in the game and felt rather opined that Pakistan benefitted from the rain in Kandy.
Rain had interrupted thrice during the match on Saturday but while the first two delays were for a short while between which the likes of Haris Rauf and Shaheen Shah Afridi wreaked havoc against the Indian top-order before Ishan Kishan and Hardik Pandya staged a stellar comeback with a record 138-run stand. But the game never resumed after rain interrupted the match post the first innings. And after a long wait, the match officials called off the game, leaving the two teams to share a point each.
After the match, Irfan took to X to make a brutal assessment of Babar’s captaincy saying that he lost the plot after Pakistan sent India four down for just 66 runs. He felt that the 21 overs of spin on a pitch with variable bounce was needless from Babar and that Rohit Sharma, in a similar situation, would have rather continued with his four fast bowlers.
“21 overs 133 runs from spinners without a wicket was game changer. If India were bowling and Pakistan were 66/4 India would have kept fast bowling on as they had a liberty of 4 fast bowlers unlike Pakistan who were playing with 3. So I thought Team India would have been more disappointed with the rain after scoring above par score on that pitch which had variable bounce. #INDvsPAK” he posted.
Those 21 overs of spin referred to by Irfan was afer the second rain delay when Babar introduced Shadab Khan into the attack. He did keep Haris and Naseem Shah on the other end until the 17th over post which Mohammad Nawaz was asked to join Shadab.
Ishan and Hardik comfortably settled in against the spinners with the two scoring their respective fifties as well before Haris was brough back in the 38th over and he removed the former immediately before Shaheen picked two more to wrap up the innings.
