ICC Champions Trophy: Pak media slams its cricketers for humiliating defeat
While most of the mainstream newspapers played down the embarrassing performance, the rest even didn't care to report the story on Page 1
Hyderabad: The spectacular dominance of Men in Blue in the ICC Champions Trophy left the Pakistan cricket team in complete distraught, and so deeply was the cut that even its national media, much like the common man in the street, were frighteningly unsettled over yesterday's defeat.
While most of the mainstream newspapers played down the news, the rest even didn't care to report the story on Page 1. In a match that was off and on affected by rain and decided by Duckworth–Lewis method, Pakistan allowed the Indians to amass 319-3 in 48 overs and then crumbled in the run-chase. In the end they could only manage 164 from 33.4 overs.
For instance, in today's edition of The News, the headline was 'India hammer Pakistan in Champions Trophy mismatch'. “It was an embarrassing performance from the Pakistanis in front of a packed crowd, which included thousands of their fans.” The daily ridiculed captain Sarfaraz Ahmad saying that they had “promised fireworks with the ball in their big Champions Trophy game. But it was the Indians who delivered with their bats”.
A day before the match, Sarfaraz in an interview told, "We have definitely have a plan... you will see us doing some new things which have not been tried against India before.” After the humiliating defeat the widely read Dawn poked fun at Sarfraz's comment: “Apart from bowling fireworks, Pakistan had also promised new tricks or using Sarfraz’s words out-of-the-box tactics. If there were any, then perhaps they were invisible to the human eye.”
Similarly, The Frontier Post, Pakistan’s first English daily that even has an edition in the Washington DC – to cater the Pakistani diaspora in the US – has downplayed the defeat. It published just a photo of viewers in Rawalpindi watching the match.
The online edition of Pakistan Today’s headline was somewhat self-glorifying, but what's shocking was the headline was faulty, and it went online like this: Indian batsmen trump “worlds best bowling attack”. However, the headline in its print edition was somewhat thoughtful: India thrash chaotic Pakistan by 124 runs. The opening lines could not have been more pernickety: “For what can be significant part of a match against many other teams, India were not at their best in the first match of their title defence. Yet, confirming how far Pakistan have fallen behind modern limited-overs cricket, they lost by a whopping 124 runs.”