Pakistan coach Gary Kirsten feels that his side put unwanted pressure on themselves after their loss to India in New York on June 9, Sunday. Pakistan were chasing a modest total of 120 runs to secure their 2nd win against India in T20 World Cups and get off the mark in the ongoing tournament. Things were looking good for the men in green as they were 73 for 2 in 13 overs and appeared to be coasting to the win.
However, the Indian bowlers were able to pull off the big win as Pakistan seemingly crumbled under pressure and lost the match by 6 runs. During the post-match press conference, Kirsten was asked if his side had put themselves in a tough spot and the Pakistan coach quickly agreed to the comment. Kirsten felt that his players should be able to decide when to take the game forward given their experience in T20 leagues across the globe.
“You are pretty much spot-on. These guys are all international players and they’re aware that when they’re not performing at their best that there’s going to be pressure put on them. That’s understandable, but a lot of these guys have played a lot of T20 cricket around the world over many, many years and it’s really up to them to decide how they’re going to take their games forward,” said Kirsten.
Kirsten said that his message to the batters was to look for the odd boundary and capitalise on the loose balls. The Pakistan coach felt that his players did well for 15 overs and once wickets fell, they stopped rotating strike and ended up finding themselves in a tough spot.
“So, the message from all of us was to look for the odd boundary, try and capitalise on the loose balls and make sure that you can get as many ones as you can through the innings. And I thought we did that brilliantly for 15 overs. We kept it at a run a ball, and then we lost wickets and then we stopped scoring ones and then we were looking for boundaries and once you’ve got to that point it was always going to be hard. So, the message was to do what we executed on for 15 overs,” said Kirsten.
