Sarfraz Ahmed: “It wasn’t our day, it was just a bad day”

Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed attributed his side’s loss to the West Indies in their World Cup opener to a “bad day” and the toss not going in his side’s favour.

After the West Indies won the toss and chose to bowl first, Pakistan’s batsmen failed to rise to the occasion and the men in green were skittled out for 105.

Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam were the top scorers as they both made 22 runs, while Wahab Riaz chipped in with a quickfire 18 at the end.

Mohammad Hafeez was the only other batsman to reach double figures as he made 16.

Chasing just 106 to win, the West Indies cruised to a seven-wicket win with 218 balls to spare.

“We lost some quick wickets in the first ten overs and we couldn’t recover well from the early setback,” Sarfraz, who admitted that West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell’s figures of 2-4 off three overs really hurt Pakistan, was quoted as saying by Geo.tv. “It wasn’t our day, it was just a bad day, we will try to move on from here and recover before the next games. I am confident that the team will bounce back in the next games.

“This is not an excuse but the toss has become important in matches here. Teams will try to [take] advantage of the early overcast conditions here if they win the toss.

“We knew exactly how the West Indies would bowl to us and we were well prepared, but we couldn’t execute it.”

Sarfraz added that he was less than impressed with the performance of his side’s batsmen.

“We will sit down and analyze our mistakes and try to correct them before the next matches,” he said.

Pakistan’s next match will be against hosts England in Nottingham on June 3, while the West Indies will take on Australia at the same venue on June 6.

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