Rattled Pakistan wins toss and bowls 1st against Canada in a must-win T20 World Cup group game
WESTBURY, N.Y. (AP) — Pakistan captain Babar Azam won the toss and chose to bowl first in a must-win Group A game against Canada at the Twenty20 World Cup on Tuesday.
Pakistan, the 2022 finalist, has been rattled by two defeats against the United States and rival India. It not only needs to win its remaining two games but also hope results of other group games go in its favor to progress to the second stage of the tournament being jointly co-hosted by the U.S. and West Indies.
The U.S. registered a historic win against Pakistan in the Super Over in Dallas last week, and Pakistan couldn’t chase down a run-a-ball target of 120 against India at the same venue on Sunday and lost the game by six runs.
Pakistan made one change and brought in Saim Ayub in place of struggling Iftikhar Ahmed.
Babar said the morning start and a “bit of grass” on the wicket encouraged him to field first.
Canada is the top-scoring team on low-scoring wickets at Nassau County International Cricket Stadium. It scored 137 runs against Ireland and won by 12 runs for its first win in the tournament.
Canada, led by Pakistan-born Saad Bin Zafar, also made one change and brought in batter Ravinderpal Singh for his first World Cup appearance in place of Dilpreet Bajwa.
Saad said he would have bowled first had he won the toss against his country of birth.
“If we can put a good score on the board, we back ourselves to defend it,” Saad said.
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Lineups:
Canada: Aaron Johnson, Navneet Dhaliwal, Pargat Singh, Ravinderpal Singh, Nicholas Kirton, Shreyas Movva, Dilon Heyliger, Saad Bin Zafar (captain), Kaleem Sana, Junaid Siddiqui, Jeremy Gordon.
Pakistan: Mohammad Rizwan, Babar Azam (captain), Usman Khan, Fakhar Zaman, Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Saim Ayub, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, Mohammad Amir, Haris Rauf.
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AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket