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New Zealand’s emphatic win against Sri Lanka in Bengaluru on Thursday evening left Pakistan with virtually no chance of making the semifinals for the World Cup for the third time in a row. Pakistan needed the 1996 world champions to win their final league game to keep their semifinal hopes alive, but a brutal loss for them implied that the Babar Azam-led side are only mathematically alive in the competition with an improbable qualification scenario in their match against England on Saturday in Kolkata. But the legendary Wasim Akram has an idea, a rather out-of-the-box strategy for Babar and his men.
With New Zealand chasing down the target of 172 against Sri Lanka in just 23.2 overs, they did not just strengthen their hold over the fourth and final semifinal spot, they also took their net run rate to +0.743. This implies that Pakistan will have to beat England by 287 runs or more if they bat first in their final round-robin game at the Eden Gardens to go past New Zealand in the NRR race. And if they are put to bowl first, the qualification chances stands impossible with Pakistan needing to chase down any target well within 5 overs.
However, Akram has come up with a hilarious idea for Pakistan to make it through to the semis for the first time since 2011, as revealed by A Sports’ TV anchor during their live show post New Zealand’s win. In the wake of the recent debate surrounding the timed-out dismissal of Sri Lanka’s Angelo Mathews, Akram wants Pakistan side to make most this variety of dismissal.
“Make whatever score that is possible and then go and lock the dressing room of the England team for 20 minutes so that all their batters get timed out,” the anchor revealed as Akram was left in splits.
Pakistan incurred a brutal blow to their World Cup campaign when they lost four matches in arow for the first time ever in a single edition of the tournament, which had included a shock loss against Afghanistan.
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