'Kept the history out of our mind, prepared well': Babar Azam after T20 World Cup clash against India
While speaking to the broadcasters at the post match-presentation ceremony Azam revealed that his team decided to keep the history out of their minds as their focus was solely on preparing to win.
As they say, the monkey is finally off their back. Pakistan beat India by 10 wickets in their opening T20 World Cup 2021 encounter in Dubai on Sunday to register their first-ever win against their neighbours in a WC game. Skipper Babar Azam shared his thoughts after the match.
Opting to bowl, Pakistan restricted India to 151/6 in 20 overs. Shaheen Shah Afridi was the pick of bowlers, bagging a three-wicket haul. For India, captain Virat Kohli (57) and wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant (39) were the lone shining stars.
In response, the two openers, Azam and wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan, in simple words, could not have batted any better. They remained not-out on 68 and 79, respectively, and stitched an unbeaten opening stand of 152 runs as Pakistan crossed the line with 13 balls to spare.
While speaking to the broadcasters at the post match-presentation ceremony Azam revealed that his wards decided to keep the history out of their minds and prepared to win.
"This was the team's effort, and the early wickets were very helpful. It gave us a lot of confidence and our spinners were very good as well. We applied our plans and got the results. We, the openers, kept it simple and built a partnership and because the wicket was getting better so we just wanted to keep batting till the end, which we did. It won't get easier just because we beat India.
"We will take the confidence, but we're taking it one match at a time, and there's a long way to go in the tournament. We prepared well, and just kept the history out of our mind. We needed quality practice, and warm-up matches, and even our domestic tournament and those games gave us a lot of confidence," elaborated Azam.