NEW DELHI: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) officials on Saturday held a press conference to address the team’s performance in the T20 World Cup, where the Indian national cricket team won the title.
During the press conference, Pakistan coach Aaqib Javed spoke about the team’s results and also referred to the long-standing record against India in the ODI World Cups.
Speaking alongside former Pakistan players Misbah-ul-Haq, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Asad Shafiq, Javed said Pakistan should not continue using India’s record as an excuse.
“Not being able to beat India in the World Cup is not an excuse, the score there is 8-0, and even the best captains in the world played from 1975 to 2026, so let’s leave that aside. In the Super 8 stage, a match was canceled due to rain, and we lost a match, nothing else happened,” he said.
“Against Sri Lanka, it was not possible to win by that margin. We only lost one match. We were eliminated only on the net run rate. To make it such a big problem is too much. It is a big problem, but not so big that our cricket is destroyed or that we cannot compete anywhere in the world.”
The discussion also brought back an earlier controversy involving Pakistani all-rounder Shadab Khan.
During the tournament, Shadab strongly responded to criticism from former players following Pakistan’s loss to India in Colombo.
When asked about comments from former cricketers like Shahid Afridi and Mohammad Yousuf, he pointed out that their teams had never beaten India in World Cups, unlike Pakistan’s T20 World Cup 2021 victory over India. Shadab was part of the 2021 team.
“Former cricketers have their own opinions. They (former players) were legends, but even they couldn’t achieve what we have. We have beaten India in a World Cup,” he added.
The message also contained nothing but disrespect towards former players, including Shadab’s father-in-law Saqlain Mushtaq.
Saqlain himself expressed disappointment at the comments.
“Those were unwanted comments, and most of the players had played with me. In fact, I am also one of them who had not won an ICC event, but we had won several important matches for Pakistan, Tests and ODIs,” Saqlain said on a Pakistani programme.