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Pakistan may have recently enjoyed the stature of the World No. 1 ODI team but fielding remains an area where they continue to struggle.
Quite often, their on-field mishaps get widely shared on social media with users poking fun. And the trend is not new.
In 2008, the likes of Shoaib Malik and Saeed Ajmal were involved in a mix-up and dropped a catch against the West Indies. Since then, the men in green seem to have become the butt of jokes whenever they make blunders on the field.
One such incident was on display on Tuesday at Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Hyderabad where Pakistan locked horns with Australia in an ICC ODI World Cup warm-up game.
During the 23rd over of Australia’s innings, Marnus Labuschagne steered a short ball from Haris Rauf towards deep backward square leg which never seemed to be going for a boundary. But a hilarious mix-up between Mohammad Wasim Jr. and Mohammad Nawaz resulted in four runs for the Aussies.
Veteran India batter Shikhar Dhawan shared the clip of the incident on microblogging site X, stating that misfielding and Pakistan go hand in hand.
“Pakistan & fielding never-ending love story #PakistanFielding #PakCricket,” Dhawan captioned the video.
Pakistan & fielding never ending love story #PakistanFielding #PakCricket pic.twitter.com/AJzT90hgNM— Shikhar Dhawan (@SDhawan25) October 3, 2023
The Australian batsmen also enjoyed a good outing earlier as Glenn Maxwell (77), Cameron Green (50 not out), Josh Inglis (48), David Warner (48) and Marnus Labuschagne (40) all fired and helped the five-time World Cup winners post 351/7 in 50 overs.
Babar was the pick of the Pakistani batsmen during the chase smashing 11 fours and two sixes on a batsman-friendly wicket but he retired after facing 59 balls and the Asian side ran out of steam despite a classy 50 by Mohammad Nawaz late on.
Pakistan folded for 337 to hand Australia the victory, but both teams will be pleased with their batsmen heading into the showpiece tournament that gets underway on Thursday.
“The result is not important. We took a lot of positives. Our attitude was good. The result is not in our hands,” said Pakistan’s stand-in skipper Shadab Khan.
“I think our 11 is sorted, we wanted to give time to the bench to show their skills. When you play against Australia and New Zealand, you get confidence,” he added.
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