The washed-out Group A match between co-hosts USA and Ireland in Florida put Pakistan out of the race to ‘Super 8s’ and helped tournament debutants USA to make a historic entry into the next stage of the showpiece T20 event.
In effect, however, it’s the US team that knocked out Pakistan with their upset win over Babar Azam & Co in their campaign opener.
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It followed the match against archrivals India, where Pakistan let a win slip out of their hands and lost by six runs. Ever since that game, the team has been lambasted by Pakistan media, former players and on social media.
“A bad thing has happened, but who knows it might be a blessing in disguise. It (the T20 World Cup flop) should be revisited…(we need to) play white-ball cricket the way it should be played,” said Imad while addressing the media in the US.
Talking in context of the heavyset wicketkeeper-batsman Azam Khan, the allrounder said that he has never body-shamed anyone and never talked about individuals.
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“As far as you said about me being an analyst as well, I have always talked only about cricket,” said Imad. “I haven’t talked about individuals, neither have I body-shamed anyone nor talked personally about that person. A cricketer’s job is to analyse cricket and to tell you whatever is going wrong and whatever is going right…”
“It happens during group stages, there are other teams who have been eliminated…There is a lot of disappointment. We are disappointed more than you guys because this is our profession…It’s all about how you get up and approach the world after falling, how do you react,” he added.
Concluding his reply to a journalist’s question, Imad, who was alleged to be playing the tournament with an injury, requested everyone to not take out the human element while doing a post-mortem of the team’s performance.
“We want to tell the Pakistan public that we couldn’t perform, and we are the ones to be blamed. Ek baat ye bhi kehna chahunga. Hum bhi insaan hain, humse bhi galti ho sakti hai aur dukh humein bhi hota hai iss cheez ka (want to say one thing; we too are humans and can commit mistakes, we are also hurt by this performance).