Today, the final of the T20 World Cup is being played between Australia and New Zealand. We wish that instead of Australia, Pakistan would have been facing NZ in the final but we lost a close contest to Australia in the semi-final on Thursday. It was extremely disappointing and truly heartbreaking but if truth be told, Pakistan’s overall performance in the tournament made us proud. 

Pakistan cricket team was the only unbeaten team in the group matches. Nobody could have predicted this performance. Every match had a different Player of the Match, which means the Pakistan team did not just rely on one or two players but performed well as a team. Look at how well Rizwan played against Australia despite being admitted in the hospital prior to the semi-final. This is called team spirit. And we broke one jinx — beating India in a World Cup. We still have to break this other jinx of beating Australia in a knockoff game. Breaking two jinxes in one World Cup was perhaps a lot. But break we will!

We made some mistakes in the semi-final. We should have made a few more runs and bowled better. Our fielding could have been better too. But everyone learns from their mistakes and this young team will learn too. But let’s not forget that arguably, Australia has probably one of the best sporting cultures in the world and also world-class facilities. In a recent transmission, Wasim Akram revealed that our gymming facilities are decades old and hardly any new machines have been added to the gym at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). Training equipment should be the latest and world-class but unfortunately, we don’t have such facilities here. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) must pay attention to these issues as well.

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Babar Azam is a brilliant captain and the unity in the team and their faith in the captain is something that is very good to see in Pakistan cricket, where mostly we have seen a lot of politics behind the scenes against the sitting captain in the past. This team is different. This team stands behind its players. Hassan Ali was not thrown under the bus. The response by Pakistan Twitter in his support is also something these boys will remember. They made us happy in uncertain times. They gave us hope when things looked gloomy. 

We love you, Team Pakistan. There are plenty more World Cups to come and we will win for sure!