The senior Pakistan cricketer Mohammad Hafeez is the latest one to join the debate racked up by England all-rounder Ben Stokes about India’s intent to chase England target during World Cup 2019.
Mohammad Hafeez while speaking with media through video link said that he is sure India’s intent wasn’t within spirit of the game but Pakistan got out of World Cup due to it’s own mistakes.
“If you show that match to any cricket fan 100 times, the fan would take only one result from that game, the intent to play with the spirit was not there, I do not know how much that result affected anyone, Pakistan team was not eliminated from the tournament on the basis of India-England match,” he said during video press conference.
“We played well in the 2019 World Cup but we were eliminated because of our mistakes only. I do not blame anyone else for our failure. We should not think that we bowed out of the tournament on the basis of one other result,” he added.
Recently England all-rounder Ben Stokes questioned India’s intent in his book titled ‘On Fire’. Ben Stokes in the book had questioned the way MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli approached the big run chase and had termed it mystifying.
Stokes, said that India’s approach in the match surprised him and this sparked off the debate about Team India’s intent as the result of the match had a direct bearing on Pakistan’s fate in the tournament. Had India defeated England, Pakistan’s chances of making it to semifinal were bright and almost done.
“I watched that entire match Ben Stokes talked about in his book, why did he write that only he can tell you about that, but according to me there was no intent for winning the match,” Hafeez went on to add.