Shan Masood "Takes Blame" For Pakistan's Lack Of A Strong Finish In T20 World Cup Final Vs England

Shan Masood worked as an ESPNcricinfo commentator at the most recent T20I World Cup a year ago. He hadn’t participated in a Pakistan T20I until two months ago.

However, despite finishing as their leading scorer in the match, he was the one sent out to the MCG press area right after Pakistan’s five-wicket loss to England in the T20 World Cup final to try and make sense of a discouraging evening for Pakistan.

After a middle-order hiccup, he and Shadab Khan put up a 36-run partnership off of 25 balls, setting the stage for a huge finish, but both fell inside six balls, and Pakistan’s innings crumbled.

Me And Shadab Khan Hold Ourselves Responsible For Not Finishing Well: Shan Masood

Shan Masood felt Shadab and himself were to blame for the innings’ collapse. “When Babar and I were batting, we built a very good platform and then lost two wickets” Masood said. “We recovered that with Shadab and myself and then I don’t think we finished well and I think me and Shadab hold ourselves accountable for not staying there.

“There were stages, especially with the bat where we could have finished the innings really well. Personally, I take blame for it. I thought that we’re aiming for 170 and having looked at how the innings ended, maybe we could have used with a batsman staying until the end and getting us to 155-160 which looked very good on a pitch that did something.”

As Masood put it, the pitch kept “doing something” all the way through the second inning. Naseem Shah regularly beat both the outside edges of the left and right handers in a fantastic, if unsuccessful, spell, while Shaheen Shah Afridi curved one in that cleaned up Alex Hales in the first over.

“With the ball, we were bowling some really really good deliveries, some very good spells, but maybe we also gave a few runs away too many early on which we could have done without,” he said. “At the end in that crucial period where we lost Shaheen, we could have done with his two overs at the end.

“We’re a bit disappointed. We couldn’t seal it in the crucial moments. England were very good in those crucial moments. I thought they came at us both with the bat and the ball.”

We Were Short A Few Runs: Haris Rauf

Haris Rauf finished with a 2 for 23 total and was especially terrifying early on, ensuring that Phil Salt and Jos Buttler were out of the game before the powerplay expired. Although Rauf lamented the loss of an additional 15 or so runs to defend, the spell was essential to Pakistan’s ability to make an easy target as difficult as they did for England.

“We were short a few runs, but as a bowling unit, we stuck to our plans,” Rauf said. “They played well and deserved to win. We had control of the match until the Shaheen injury. Ben Stokes was quite lucky and kept missing the outside edge, but we did think Shaheen not being able to bowl out make a difference.

I’ve played a lot of cricket at the MCG and everyone knows scoring runs here is tricky; the boundaries are big. If we had 150 on the total, that would have posed more questions to them. But we bowled well to take it so close.”

Finishing Games Next Step For Pakistan: Shan Masood

Pakistan lost the final game in a season that had started with two losses on the penultimate ball. Shan Masood noted that while four victories and three losses might not be considered runner-up form, the manner of the victories and losses painted a more accurate picture of Pakistan’s campaign.

“I think we can sum it up with the wins and losses. I think the games that we have won, we’ve won them pretty comfortably. And the good sign always is that when you lose, you lose close games.

So you realise that those things are in your own hands. The three games we lost to India, Zimbabwe and even the final there were opportunities where we could have closed out those games.

“You make mistakes, not just when you lose you also make mistakes when you win. So I think the side is very good at doing that. The side is very good at holding itself accountable. We played the World Cup semi-final last year, lost a close semi final, played the Asia Cup final and the World Cup final.

The next step this young team has to take is finishing out games, finishing out close moments. The way Babar is leading this team, the leadership group in Shadab and Rizwan and this management, I’ve got no doubts that with future World Cups coming this side will be a constant threat and amongst the top teams.”

I Will Never Be Satisfied With What I Do: Shan Masood

Shan Masood played a crucial role in Pakistan’s surge in the early middle overs, especially when he took 16 off Liam Livingston’s single over to put Pakistan in a position of relative dominance at 84 for 2 after 11 overs. From a Test match expert and a T20 beginner to Pakistan’s main hope in a World Cup final, it’s been quite the ride.

“Funnily enough, I was watching the last World Cup with ESPNcricinfo doing some commentary work,” he said. “Life can change but I think personally in my life there’ve been huge lessons which has allowed me to be freer, enjoy the game more and be the best version of myself.

I’ll never be satisfied with what I do. There are things that I want to improve in my game and hopefully I’ll keep working on them and keep growing as a player.”

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