'Asia Cup thrashing against India started the downfall of Pakistani fast bowlers' - Ramiz Raja

[Haarkarjeetgaye]

1 hour ago, Ultimate_Game said:

 

Same fallacy in thinking which Kohli used to make as a captain. Just because a game didn't go your way, just like SL match in CT 2017 he decided to field on a patta in the final.

 

Batting first was the only decent option we had in a final. In finals pressure does crazy things and scoreboard pressure is unlike what you see in group matches or in bilaterals. The reason our so called "best batting" and "best batsman of the decade" in Kohli used to chase anything in bilaterals and when it came to must-win matches in WC, he failed every single time.

 

There's a reason why the highest successful chase in a ODI WC is still 270 odd by India (thanks to Gambhir & Dhoni). And that team in 2003 wasn't that good at chasing either. That changed with the arrival of Dhoni in mid 2000s where Dhoni, Yuvraj and to an extent Raina made us into a chasing powerhouse. IIRC we had a record at one time with max no. of consecutive successful run chases. But even then we didn't decide to chase in finals. In WT20 2007 we batted first, in CT 2013 we did so as well and in WC 2011 Dhoni wanted to bat first before the toss fiasco where Sangakarra literally cheated at the toss. Point being that despite a team good at chasing, Dhoni understood that in finals that's a huge risk and runs in the bank matter a lot. Ganguly OTOH decided to chase against likes of McGrath, Lee etc. despite our team not known for chasing. An idiotic decision to say the least when history of the WC showed batting first is the way to go in the finals.

tau, why did we lose 2023 then