🏏ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026:M12: USA vs Pak, Colombo 🏏 - Page 9

Sahibzada Farhan | Player of the Match: The way we practiced yesterday, the ball was coming onto my bat really well in the nets. I had already told yesterday that I was getting good feelings for today’s match. I was confident. I even said, I will finish the match in a way that earns me the Player of the Match award. I’ve set a personal target for myself, to win at least two to three Player of the Match awards in this World Cup. I felt this pitch was much better. The ball was coming nicely onto the bat. As openers, the role for me and Saim Ayub is always to utilize the powerplay properly. I naturally play an attacking brand of cricket. Ayub got the start today but was a bit unlucky. My thinking was to continue playing my natural game because in T20 cricket, as an opener, you have to play that way. That’s the role given to us by the captain, to keep the attack on in the first six overs. We’ll go in with the same mindset as we did in our previous matches against India, including the Asia Cup. We’ll try to stay positive and play attacking cricket.

Monank Patel | USA captain: We bowled decent in the powerplay but didn't bowl well in the middle overs. Came back in the last four overs where the pacers bowled well. We were still in the game with 190. Played well in the powerplay but couldn't show intent in the middle overs. While batting we didn't show intent. Their spinners were not giving enough pace and it was hard to hit the boundary options. We panicked a bit and that cost us the game. We've been playing really good cricket since the last 12-15 months. Coming here for the second game, we were confident enough. Just small mistakes in the game. Want to make sure we finish this World Cup strong with two wins. It's not easy playing at different venues. Now we'll go to Chennai. We'll have one session there. Will work hard to come back stronger.

Salman Agha | Pakistan captain: I always smile. When have you seen me not smile? (laughs). Clinical performance, we started well with the bat and batted really well in the middle. When we come to bowling we have a world-class attack, and scoring 190, we know we could defend that/ I would have batted ass well, if we score 160-170,. we know we can defend that. We are Pakistani, we do it differently. We are comfortable chasing, but we try to bat first and put up above par, then try to defend. We have a flexible order, first three ready to go and then finishers can go early, or if we lose wickets we have batters who can take the game deeper. Always room for improvement, we'd like to bowl better in the powerplay, be more clinical. These are the things we want to improve.

Pakistan fly high in Colombo - After an underwhelming show against the Netherlands, Pakistan have roared back in style, putting on a complete performance and winning this convincingly by 32 runs. Plenty of positives to take, with Babar back among the runs when it mattered, and the spinners tightening the noose relentlessly, accounting for seven of the eight wickets to crush the chase. For the USA, the concerns are mounting, and more worryingly, they are becoming a recurring theme within the batting unit. The middle order has struggled to soak up pressure time and again, and they will be hoping that added exposure at this level helps them find answers sooner rather than later.

Two straight wins for Pakistan who will be feeling good about themselves as they go into the big clash against India. The win against Netherlands was a nervy one but there was nothing nervy about this performance today. They like batting first, as admitted by captain Salman Agha, and then leave it upto their strong bowling attack to defend. Four genuine spinners in their ranks, all very different from each other and they came to the party today. USA were good in parts but never really threatened at any stage.

What the heck is the bowling action of Usman Tariq? How did the ICC pass him?

There’s phrase called blowing one’s own trumpet lol — I think it’ll be suitable for quite some people.

With that Pakistan will be meeting India on the 15th while USA will be travelling to Chennai for their next match.

Originally posted by: catchm-ifucan

What the heck is the bowling action of Usman Tariq? How did the ICC pass him?

Somebody in the commentary apparently had the same feelings

Here's Shadow-Shell: "As a batter, Usman Tariq's bowling action will be so frustrating"

I think Australia didn't raise a hue and cry because they knew the next few matches of Pakistan would be with India and they wanted India to get affected by this weird bowling action and let India do the dirty work of complaining and muddling with the Pakistani media...Such smart asses!