Srinagar: Pakistan skipper Babar Azam praised his bowlers for the pwrformance in fourth T20I vs New Zealand and blamed batting collpase for the defeat.
Pakistan came close to chasing the target down but fell four runs short as Imad Wasim couldn’t take his side over the line in the last over.
“I think we restricted them in bowling really well. We were expecting 190-200 but the bowlers stuck to their plans, it was chaseable, but we had a batting collapse. We lost three-four wickets in the powerplay but Fakhar’s innings was outstanding. We wanted to chase it with positive intent but we were unable to do so,” Babar said after the match.
“When you lose back-to-back wickets, you need a few overs to catch up but that we got derailed in that period. It was a different surface; we were coming back after a long time, average score is 190 so I think we restricted them well.”
The 29-year-old then stated that he had to make changes in the playing XI due to injuries to some players before adding that the plan was to check our bench strength.
“There were some changes due to injuries but youngsters put in a great effort. Our plan was to give proper opportunity to (test our) bench strength and see where we stand and we wanted to play different combinations. Hopefully, we will have the team ready come the time of World Cup,” he added.