Salman Butt: “The batsmen have to play sensibly and not try to hit big shots”

Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

Ex-Pakistan captain Salman Butt has criticised the national team’s batsmen for not playing out the entire 50 overs and for being overly aggressive at the World Cup.

Salman’s comments come after Pakistan lost to arch-rivals India by 89 runs via the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method in their World Cup clash last Sunday.

India’s victory extended their unbeaten streak against Pakistan as they have now won all seven of their meetings against their arch-rivals in the World Cup.

To make matters worse, Pakistan have now only won one of the five World Cup games they have played.

“The Pakistani batsmen must try to play [all the] overs as they are not utilising the full quota of overs,” Salman told The Nation. “The batsmen have to play sensibly and not try to hit big shots. We have witnessed in the World Cup so far that the players, who try to play aggressive cricket, [are] losing [their] wickets and their teams [are failing] to post decent totals.

“It doesn’t apply [to the] big teams as they have freedom and liberty of having so many natural strikers of the cricket ball [that] can make [a] difference [at] any time.”

Pakistan’s next World Cup match will be against South Africa at Lord’s on Sunday.

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