'India ne hume respect dena shuru kardiya hain': Ramiz Raja lauds Pakistan cricket team

Whenever India and Pakistan face each other, it has always been an exciting battle to watch. Until last October, India had won all 12 of their World Cup encounters with Pakistan – seven ODIs and five T20Is. Pakistan, however, triumphed twice in the last three meetings between the two teams, once in the 2021 T20 World Cup opening match and once in the 2022 Asia Cup Super 4.

Referring to the recent results, Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ramiz Raja lauded the Babar Azam-led unit for putting up a great competition in front of the strong Indian brigade. According to the former cricketer, India are now taking their Asian rival quite seriously.

India will cross swords with Pakistan again on 23 October in the T20 World Cup match in Melbourne. Ahead of the mega clash, while speaking to Dawn, Ramiz Raja said, “Skill aur talent se zyada mental match hota hain yeh. So agar aap temperamentally strong he and mentally focussed he aur haar manne ko taiyar nahi hain toh chhoti team bhi badi team ko hara sakti hain (India vs Pakistan match is more of a mental contest than skill and talent. If only you are mentally focused and not ready to give up, a small team can defeat a big team).”

“Pakistan humesha se underdogs rahein hain jab bhi India se muqabla huye hain, but of late, unhone hume respect dena shuru kardiya hain kyunki unke khayal me yeh hain ki Pakistan hume kabhi hara hi nehi sakte (Pakistan have always been underdogs when they face India, but of late, they have started to respect us because they used to think they can never lose to Pakistan),” said Ramiz Raja.

Given their minimal resources in comparison to India, Ramiz Raja, therefore, stated that the new-age Pakistan side has been doing great against the “billion-dollar Indian side.”

Remembering his playing days, Ramiz Raja also mentioned that India were untouchable during that time and Pakistan were never able to beat them. This is the reason why the former Pakistan batter wanted to give credit to the Babar Azam-led team.

“I have played in the World Cups, but we were never able to beat India. Iss team ko credit dena chaiye kyunki limited resources, compared to India, se prepare karte he and tagda muqabla karte hain (We should give credit to this team because despite having limited resources in comparison to India, they give them a good competition,” he said.

Despite Pakistan’s recent success, the Men in Blue still hold the edge in head-to-head stats in T20s. In 11 matches till now, India have bagged as many as seven matches. Based on the ICC rankings, the Rohit Sharma-led side is also way ahead of Pakistan, standing atop the tally, while Babar Azam and Co are at No 4.

However, Pakistan have been doing well in recent times, thanks to a number of talented cricketers in the team. Their opening batter Mohammad Rizwan is in a good rhythm and has just acquired the top spot among the T20I batters around the globe. The Shaheen Afridi-led bowling unit is capable of producing significant damage in the shortest format of the game.

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