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Never deserved to win - Shoaib Akhtar 'hurt' after USA pull off stunning win vs Pakistan in T20 World Cup

Never deserved to win - Shoaib Akhtar 'hurt' after USA pull off stunning win vs Pakistan in T20 World Cup

Shoaib Akhtar 'hurt' after USA pull off stunning win vs Pakistan in T20 WC

Monank Patel-led USA stunned Pakistan in a Super Over thriller in match 11 of the 2024 T20 World Cup on Thursday (local time). Playing at the Grand Prairie Stadium, Dallas, Babar Azam-led Pakistan lost the game in the Super Over; failing to chase down 19. Following this shocking loss, former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar is 'hurt' and stated that Babar & Co. didn't 'deserve to win'.

Akhtar, also known as the Rawalpindi Express, is very active on social media platform X (earlier known as Twitter). He shared a video after Pakistan's loss where hestated, "Disappointing loss for Pakistan. We are not off to a good start, losing to USA. We repeated history, like we did against Bangladesh in the 1999 World Cup. Unfortunately, Pakistan never deserved to win. The reason is that USA played very well and were in a commanding position."

Akhtar further added, "[Mohammad] Amir saved the match. He and Shaheen [Shah Afridi] tried. They [US] won 37 overs of the contest, if we look at the overall picture. Unfortunately, we couldn't pull it off."

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Talking about the contest, Babar-led Pakistan were asked to bat first and struggled to get going due to early setbacks and tight bowling from USA (led by pacer Saurabh Netravalkar and left-arm orthodox Nosthush Kenjige). While Shadab Khan's 25-ball 40 and cameos from Iftikhar Ahmed and Shaheen Afridi propelled Pakistan to 159/7, USA tied the game, posting 159/3, courtesy of their captain Monank's 50,Andries Gous (35) and vice-captain Aaron Jones' 36*.

In the Super Over, Mohammad Amir -- who was economical with match figures of 1 for 25 -- leaked 18 runs beforeNetravalkar bowled an excellent final six balls to restrict Pakistan to 13/1.

In the 2022 T20 WC, Pakistan lost to Zimbabwe in the group stage and were also beaten by Afghanistan in the 2023 ODI WC. In the run-up to this T20 WC, they also lost a T20I versusIreland. Thus, the Men in Green have a huge task to revive before their next outing, where they face arch-rivals India in New York on Sunday (June 9).