Pakistan beat Bangladesh by 94 runs on Friday in their final group match of World Cup 2019 at Lord’s.
Pakistan needed to score in excess of 350-400 and beat Bangladesh by more than 300 runs to have any chance at qualifying for the semis with a better run-rate than New Zealand. But Pakistan managed to post 315/9 putting at rest all hopes of making it to the last-4.
On Friday at Lord’s Sarfaraz Ahmed won the toss and chose to bat with the intention of scoring big.
Opener Imam ul Haq scored a fluent century while Babar Azam missed out on his 2nd hundred of the tournament by just 4 runs as Pakistan looked like they could end up realizing their hopes of setting up a 400+ total. But the duo didn’t find enough support from the rest of the lineup with Imad Wasim being the next top-scorer with 43 runs to his name.
It was Imad whose lusty death-overs hitting helped his side cross 300 as Mustafizur Rahman with his bowling variations picked up his 2nd 5-wicket haul in as many matches, restricted Pakistan to a chaseable total.
In reply, Bangladesh innings never got going with all-rounder Shakib al Hasan again top-scoring with 64 runs but there was hardly any support for him otherwise. As many as 5 other batsmen got off to a start but failed to build on as Pakistan bowlers kept chipping away at the wickets.
Most impressive was Shaheen Shah Afridi who picked up a 6-fer off his own thus becoming the youngest ever to pick a 5 wicket haul in World Cup history. Wahab Riaz bagged the crucial wicket of Shakib al Hasan while Mohammad Amir and Shadab Khan also picked one wicket apiece.
Source : Various