Imad Wasim: Responsibility for India Defeat is Mine, Change Needed

Pakistan all-rounder batter Imad Wasim has spoken recently in the press conference before their last game against Ireland in the T20 World Cup 2024. Imad took responsibility for losing the group stage game against their arch-rivals India by 6 runs and told the reason why they could not execute their plans.

Pakistan was still hoping they would qualify for the Super 8 round. But the game between the United States (USA) and Ireland (IRE) in Florida was called off due to rain and a wet outfield and this caused the elimination of the Pakistan Cricket team.

Imad Wasim said their plan was to take the game deep against the Blue team who qualified for the Super 8 stages. Their plan was to take the game deep as the New York pitch was not very easy to bat on. But they cannot execute their plans properly.

“In my opinion, the reason for our defeat [In the World Cup] was our mindset. We need to take the fear of failure out of our minds and try something new. It is all about mindset, other teams have also changed their thinking, we are behind them because we didn’t change our way of thinking,” he added.

When questioned if the team needed major adjustments or if the fundamentals were already in place, Imad said that while it was beyond of his purview, “drastic” changes were currently necessary.

“It’s not my domain but I think there need to be changes. There should be a drastic change so that we can move forward and fight with world cricket in the way that cricket is played now,” the all-rounder added.

The damp outfield caused the USA’s match against Ireland to be postponed, and Pakistan was subsequently eliminated from the competition.

“You can’t control the weather. It was raining for the last week, and I’ve never seen rain in my life like that, so you can’t blame the groundsmen or ICC. It was tough that it was washed out but we shouldn’t have let this happen – we should have won both our games to be in a safe zone but unfortunately, that didn’t happen,” he concluded.

Pakistan’s final match versus Ireland is scheduled for this Sunday in Fort Lauderhill, Florida.