Mohammad Hafeez says India lacked match-winning intent during WC 2019 game against England

Mohammad Hafeez reckons that India deliberately lost their World Cup 2019 group match against England that was played at Edgbaston. Earlier, former Pakistani cricketers Waqar Younis, Abdul Razzaq, and Mushtaq Ahmed had come forward and said that India had lost the match to knock Pakistan out of the World Cup. Even star English all-rounder Ben Stokes in his book had mentioned that Mahendra Singh Dhoni had shown a 'lack of intent' in that contest.

'No match-winning intent': Mohammad Hafeez

During a video conference organised by Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), Hafeez went on to say that when one asks any cricket fan, they will say that the intent to play with the spirit was not there. He then mentioned that he does not know about the results and who went out because of that. Speaking about Pakistan's performance in that tournament, the veteran all-rounder added that the Men In Green had played good cricket but were out because of their small mistakes, and therefore, he cannot blame any result for that (Referring to Pak's semi-final qualification scenario). 

However, the former Pakistan skipper added that if he sees the match as a fan, he did not see the match-winning intent and felt bad for the sport. Furthermore, the 2017 Champions Trophy winner added that the encounter factor was missing where both teams were playing to win.

Coming back to the India-England contest, it was a must-win game for the hosts and a loss would have brought curtains down on their campaign while Pakistan would have qualified for the semi-finals. 

Ben Stokes recalls 2019 World Cup clash against India, questions MS Dhoni

Stokes, who recently came up with a book titled 'On Fire', questioned the run-chasing tactics applied by the Indian batsmen when the two nations clashed in the 38th match of the same tournament. The all-rounder said that he saw “no intent” from MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav when the two batsmen were at the crease.

In his book, Ben Stokes wrote that he was mystified by the batting approach of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma during their partnership. The two batsmen took up 25.5 overs to form a 138-run second-wicket stand when India were in pursuit of a 338-run target. He also questioned MS Dhoni’s batting technique as the veteran wicketkeeper scored only 42 runs from 31 balls, even though the batsman arrived at the crease when India required another 112 runs from their remaining 11 overs.

The southpaw believes that India were in with a chance of winning the contest when MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav were batting together. He wrote that the England camp were always aware of Dhoni’s approach of sticking around and taking the game as close as possible. However, the two batsmen were committed to taking singles until the penultimate over. While the final over of the Indian innings yielded 12 runs, the contest was already out of the ‘Men in Blue’s’ reach by then. Ben Stokes said that India’s batting seemed bizarre to the England team management, but admitted that their tactic played into England’s hands.

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