World Cup: ‘You will keep getting punished until you hold catches’ – Ramiz Raja on Pakistan’s loss to Australia

NEW DELHI: Pakistan cricket team’s poor fielding has been infamous for many years. But what happened at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Friday in their World Cup loss to Australia was something none would have expected.
Australian swashbuckling opener David Warner had just started to go for his shots when a mistimed top-edge off Shaheen Afridi went high up in the air. Pakistanis were hoping for the first breakthrough with Usama Mir, playing his first match of the World Cup, getting underneath and positioning himself at mid-on to take the skier. But as luck would have it, Usama Mir dropped a sitter much to the shock his teammates.
Not only Warner went on to score a century, his opening partner Mitchell Marsh also scored a ton. Australia went on to score 367/9, not only their highest ODI World Cup total against Pakistan, but also the highest team total against Pakistan in World Cups, surpassing Sri Lanka’s 344/9.
Warner scored a 124-ball 163 – a knock studded with 9 sixes and 14 fours.
This was Warner’s fourth consecutive century against Pakistan, which incidentally were on the other side when he struck his maiden Test triple hundred – an unbeaten 335.
Usama Mir conceded 82 runs off his 9 overs taking only 1 wicket registering the unwanted record for the most runs conceded on World Cup debut for Pakistan.
Pakistan went on to lose the match by 62 runs.
After the match, former Pakistan cricketer Ramiz Raja was asked about his thoughts on Pakistan’s defeat on Star Sports.
Raja said, “I have never seen anyone giving such a massive punishment for a dropped catch. A lot of catches are dropped but I have never seen anyone scoring 150-160. So it is a wake-up call for Pakistan that you will keep getting punished until you hold catches.”
“Once you lose the momentum, it is difficult to get it back and win. The next match is against Afghanistan in Chennai, which will not be an easy match as Pakistan’s batters don’t play spin that well,” Raja added.
Pakistan next meet Afghanistan in Chennai on Monday.
Afghanistan have lost all seven ODIs against Pakistan but can take a degree of satisfaction from knowing that they clinched three of the teams’ last four Twenty20 meetings.