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What has been Pakistan's worst World Cup performance to date?

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MenInG

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The 1999 World Cup final which I thought we had in the bag in my view was the worst for Pakistan!

Bowled out for 132 - utter humiliation!

What is your choice?


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https://www.cricketcountry.com/arti...-succumbed-to-spin-maestro-shane-warne-828497

If Australia‘s first title was a close encounter, the second one was a one-sided affair. Pakistan captain Wasim Akram won the toss, which probably was the only thing that went right for them and elected to bat.

Pakistan sorely missed the services of an in-form Yousuf Youhana and neither Inzamam-ul-Haq nor Ijaz Ahmed was in good nick. Shane Warne ran through the batting line-up as Pakistan were bowled out an over short of the 40-over mark — for a paltry 132. Warne finished with figures of 9-1-33-4 to follow his 10-4-29-4 in the semi-final, which took his series tally to 20 wickets; he would finish as the joint-highest wicket-taker along with Geoff Allott.

Despite the presence of ODI legends like Akram and Saqlain Mushtaq in the side, Pakistan’s biggest hope was probably Shoaib Akhtar; he had, after all, knocked the wind out of New Zealand in only the previous match.

Unfortunately, Adam Gilchrist cut loose before Akram could settle down, smashing two boundaries in Wasim’s second over. Not to lose out on the contest, Mark Waugh flicked Shoaib and cover-drove Wasim for fours.

The onslaught did not stop. Gilchrist hit 4 boundaries in the next 3 overs to bring up his fifty in 33 balls. With the score on 75 after 10 overs, a desperate Wasim turned to Saqlain. Gilchrist’s innings came to an end as he drove to Inzamam (who somehow managed to injure himself while taking an easy catch) at mid-off, but his 49-ball 54 had already knocked Pakistan out of the match.

As the forlorn Pakistani supporters left the ground, the Australian supporters celebrated in joy; Darren Lehmann and Steve Waugh grabbed the stumps; and a legacy that lasted over a decade began. (ALSO READ: A run-out chaos and a tie, Australia steal South Africa’s thunder in Birmingham)

Steve Waugh joined Clive Lloyd, Andy Roberts, Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Alvin Kallicharran, and Deryck Murray as the only ones to win the World Cup twice, though Moody was also a part of the 1987 team that won the World Cup.

Brief scores: Pakistan 132 in 39 overs (Shane Warne 4 for 33) lost to Australia 133 for 2 in 20.1 overs (Adam Gilchrist 54) by 8 wickets with 179 balls to spare.

Man of the Match: Shane Warne
 
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Losing to Bangladesh in 99. It just didn't feel right - with players laughing after getting dismissed to innocuous balls and Akram with no hint of pain at the ceremony after.

Sort of laid the foundation for an even more bizarre final mentioned above.
 
Corridor of Uncertainty said:
Losing to Bangladesh in 99. It just didn't feel right - with players laughing after getting dismissed to innocuous balls and Akram with no hint of pain at the ceremony after.

Sort of laid the foundation for an even more bizarre final mentioned above.
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The run outs were ridiculous, and frankly highly suspicious when you look back at the footage. We weren't the best runners between the wickets but when watching them again you could only be deliberately that incompetent.
 
1999 was bad because of what could have been. Such a talented group of players yet they threw the chance away due to unprofessionalism, and ill discipline. Still remember the stories of the players getting drunk at casinos until 4am even though they had a match the next day.
 
2007 World Cup easily.

How the hell do the likes of Younis, Yousuf, Inzamam fail to score against a team like Ireland?
 
Chokli said:
2007 World Cup easily.

How the hell do the likes of Younis, Yousuf, Inzamam fail to score against a team like Ireland?
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South Africa were also in trouble on a seam friendly wicket against Ireland in a warm up match but they played it smart and crawled to 192 knowing they could defend it.

That's what we should've done - even 175 would've been defendable. We took 7 wickets.
 
Markhor said:
South Africa were also in trouble on a seam friendly wicket against Ireland in a warm up match but they played it smart and crawled to 192 knowing they could defend it.

That's what we should've done - even 175 would've been defendable. We took 7 wickets.
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Indeed, it was a pathetic performance from our senior most players... Forgot to mention Malik

I think if we had gotten even 160 it was defendable.

We defended 184 against Canada in 2011.
 
The entire 2003 World Cup campaign was one of the most depressing viewing experiences of my life. Far too many clapped out, broken down seniors were carried to this event.

We were labouring to victory even against Holland and Namibia. The nadir was being castled by a young Jimmy Anderson against England.

Mueez said:
In my opinion whole WC 2015 campaign.
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The West Indies match was a debacle from start to finish.
 
Has to be the loss to Ireland. I remember that day.
 
Everything after 1999 has been downhill, if you ask me. We were maybe decent in 2015 but we were terrible in 2011. Only Saeed ajmal was carrying us in 2011.
 
Stewie said:
Everything after 1999 has been downhill, if you ask me. We were maybe decent in 2015 but we were terrible in 2011. Only Saeed ajmal was carrying us in 2011.
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Terrible in the WC where we were top in the group and lost in the semis. But decent in the WC where in one of the matches we were standing at 1/4 and we got thrashed in the QF. Where's the Logic?
 
Chokli said:
Not really

Nasir Jamshed
Ahmed Shehzad
Younis Khan
Haris Sohail
Misbah Ul Haq
Sohaib Maqsood
Umar Akmal
Shahid Afridi
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Lol. This just makes it even worse.
As i said, Such a weak batting team. YK is in the team fgs.
 
Markhor said:
The entire 2003 World Cup campaign was one of the most depressing viewing experiences of my life. Far too many clapped out, broken down seniors were carried to this event.

We were labouring to victory even against Holland and Namibia. The nadir was being castled by a young Jimmy Anderson against England.



The West Indies match was a debacle from start to finish.
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2003 was the worst by far. A great, albeit past-it squad and an easier format that the one implemented four years later. Our worst World Cup performance.

In 2007, we had one poor game and were knocked out. You could say that was harsh given that Zimbabwe were crushed in our final group game. Flukes happen and that was certainly a fluke.
 
Ronaldo7 said:
Terrible in the WC where we were top in the group and lost in the semis. But decent in the WC where in one of the matches we were standing at 1/4 and we got thrashed in the QF. Where's the Logic?
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Personal opinion. Eeverybody expects us to do well in the SC conditions but qualifying in AUS, to me was a bigger deal.
 
2007. Losing to Ireland was an embarrassment. Also failing to chase 241 against an average West Indies team was a disappointment.
 
Stewie said:
Everything after 1999 has been downhill, if you ask me. We were maybe decent in 2015 but we were terrible in 2011. Only Saeed ajmal was carrying us in 2011.
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You ended Australia's WC streak. That alone qualifies for a pretty decent outing plus you only were eliminated by a red-hot India in front of their rabid home crowd which is a daunting prospect for anyone.

I would say 2007 WC against Ireland qualifies as it was an abject surrender.
 
From my experience, losing v Ireland and in process getting knocked out of the world cup in 2007.
 
Stewie said:
Personal opinion. Eeverybody expects us to do well in the SC conditions but qualifying in AUS, to me was a bigger deal.
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Lol. Even Bangladesh qualified. If we hadn't fluked against SA we wouldn't have gone to the QF.
 
2003 was a ridiculously talented squad and literally the only player who was too old to be there was Wasim Akram. Maybe Saeed Anwar was too but he ended up Pakistan's top scorer.

The rest of team had no excuse to underperform and ought to have done a lot better.
 
Ronaldo7 said:
Lol. This just makes it even worse.
As i said, Such a weak batting team. YK is in the team fgs.
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Not weak at all, looks really good on paper.

You had Umar and Afridi coming in at 7 and 8.

To put it into perspective people want Umar Akmal to bat at 5 in this World Cup and Asif Ali (poor man's Afridi) to bat at 6 and they think they'll win the World Cup.
 
Stewie said:
Everything after 1999 has been downhill, if you ask me. We were maybe decent in 2015 but we were terrible in 2011. Only Saeed ajmal was carrying us in 2011.
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Terrible in 2011? :))

We only lost two matches, first versus New Zealand which was lost by Kamran Akmal single handedly and then versus India after they gifted us the match 4 times.
 
Chokli said:
Terrible in 2011? :))

We only lost two matches, first versus New Zealand which was lost by Kamran Akmal single handedly and then versus India after they gifted us the match 4 times.
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Maybe you guys are right. I’ll be honest, I did not pay much attention to the last two world cups, less so to the 2011 edition.

So I guess I stand corrected. Looks like our performances alternate between decent and bad over the last three. So hope we do well in this one.
 
If I were to rank our performances by World Cup in order then - (75, 79, 83 don't count)

1992
1999
1987
2011
1996
2015
2003
2007
 
2015 WC game v WI. Especially since before that game WI lost against Ireland and our fielding was atrocious and Russell was playing stick cricket against us, scoring like 40 from 10 odd balls. And then the collapse of 1/4, I mean when do you see a scorecard like that ever? That's like when your playing a cricket game for the first time and are trying to figure out the controls, It was just sad to see. I really thought we would've been bowled out for less than 30.
 
1999 we made it to the final at least. However 132 was an undefendable score but we did beat Australia during the group Match. So I would say Pakistan was unlucky to get bowled out so soon (under 40 overs) for a score so low. Had Pakistan bowled first maybe the story was different. So no not the 1999 world cup.

2007 was the worst World cup ever. Pakistan played poorly through out the tournament and Bob Woolmers death was also a huge tragedy. We got knocked out of the first round that was worst performance ever.
 
It has to be 2007 WC. PAK had a good side & could have made it to Final (AUS was clear favourite). It was Shoaib & Asif derailed the preparation, but still PAK was in an easy group.

First, allowed WIN to come back from 77-3 in 20 overs to 240+ (WIN scored like 60 in last 5 overs with 3-4 wickets at hand). Then, in elimination game lost to IRL as casually as it could be - it was a 170 winning track and PAK started as casually as possible, still reached 56-2 in 13th over; then couple couple of casual shots made it like 5-6 down in no time. Still, it was possible to post a fighting total, as Irish bowlers were also nervous - gave 29 extras (innings highest contribution), still took all 10 wickets & later edged past the total.
 
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It is between 2003 and 2007. Both were poor performances but 2007 takes the cake here. The overall tournament was poor. 2003 was poor as well but Pakistan carried lots of over the hill players in the XI who retired soon after the tournament.
 
Some people would say winning the 92' world cup final was the worst thing that happened in cricket to Pakistan. Created a hero out of a trundler who was taking a place of a young fast bowler in the team, bowling his slow nothing lollypops and batting at 50 strike rate while promoting himself at number 3 over talented young batsmen.

:ik
 
Gabbar Singh said:
1999 was bad because of what could have been. Such a talented group of players yet they threw the chance away due to unprofessionalism, and ill discipline. Still remember the stories of the players getting drunk at casinos until 4am even though they had a match the next day.
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If true, they surely deserved to lose
 
GoUgandaCranes said:
Some people would say winning the 92' world cup final was the worst thing that happened in cricket to Pakistan. Created a hero out of a trundler who was taking a place of a young fast bowler in the team, bowling his slow nothing lollypops and batting at 50 strike rate while promoting himself at number 3 over talented young batsmen.

:ik
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And to add to that, coming out with that Tiger T-shirt, a chikcen can never become a tiger.
 
2007 vs Ireland no doubt about it.

1999 final has a lot of different takes on it, but a loss is a loss. Still, that was the last Pakistan team to make it to a World Cup final, so you can't fault that squad too much.

It will officially be 20 years since that 1999 final this year. Will we make it to the finals at least this time? Will be a much taller task than it was back then.
 
May be we will have to wait until 2019 World Cup. Our current team has potential to break all the previous bad records.
 
I would rank them such:

1)2007 we had a good team that just messed up. If we had gotten through that first round we would have gone all the way to the semis.

2)1996 was a disaster. We were arguably one of the top three to four teams in the world, some of the all time greats were there and we were winning that qf before we messed it up..should have got to the final on our home turf..

3)2003 the bhudda squad...never expected much from them but still should have done much better..the two W's were finished and akther was getting to big for his boots..saqlain was also on the slide and mushy too..the twilight of the 92 generation.
 
Hasan123 said:
2007. Losing to Ireland was an embarrassment. Also failing to chase 241 against an average West Indies team was a disappointment.
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Dwayne Smith of all people destroyed us :))

Yet we're still taking Hafeez and Malik, two of the guilty men of that tournament, to the 2019 WC !
 
Losing to Ireland and then the post match tragedies and accusations that took place ..

Nothing even comes close was the darkest day in cricket
 
Has to be the 2007 campaign with the loss to Ireland and the tragedy that followed. 2003 and 2015 are the second and third worst.
 
96 - Pakistan were in an easier group. Only Saffers were strong enough and they lost to SA. NZ were OK and England were rubbish. Im not sure PAK could have beaten any of WI/OZ/SL in that world cup as they were very tough opponents .

99 - Not a bad performance at all. Deservingly runners up.

2003 - Ageing team with massive egos and playing purely on reputation. Had already lost 4-1 in ODIs in SA . Waqar was trundling after first spell. Akhtar was all over the place and Wasim was good only in patches. Batting was pathetic . Underperformed considering the names in that squad but Zak/nehra/Srinath were a better attack in that world cup and that says it all.

2007 - This was the only truly subpar performance . Pakistan were not favourites. But losing to Ireland was the worst performance of the tournament. Should have atleast made super 8

2011 - Kicked above their weight thanks to spin trio .

2015 - Par performance. QF knockout was all that team was capable of.
 
Chokli said:
Indeed, it was a pathetic performance from our senior most players... Forgot to mention Malik

I think if we had gotten even 160 it was defendable.

We defended 184 against Canada in 2011.
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That bowling lineup didn't have the winning mentality or defending ability to have won that.
We defended a lot of low scores around 2009-2014. Saeed Ajmal, Hafeez and Afridi won us a lot of matches through their bowling which we couldn't have won. Our pace attack has been dismal since 2006. Shoaib Akhtar and Asif was one pair that had a hunting ability to win out of nowhere and Umar Gul in his peak (plus when in rhythm). Apart from that, our pace attack since last decade has been pretty over rated to say the least.
 
2007 was the worst in all WCs to date. The squad sent there was just to make up numbers, they didn't believe they were contenders for that title. Could listen to Inzi's interviews around that time that he didn't believe in the team he very much chose himself ironically. Danish Kaneria was picked up just on the basis of his Test reputation (Yasir Shah now), Ajmal or Abdur Rehman would have been far better options. Plus Inzi was a very poor and egocentric captain. I still remember we would go in with only part time spinners on subcontinent tracks. Afridi and Shoaib Malik were our lead spinners and Afridi hadn't found his nick as a bowler back then. Says it all.

They days after that defeat to Ireland, I was unable to get my head right for quite long.
 
Ireland defeat.

I think its right up there with Kenya beating West Indies in 1996 as among the biggest upsets in world cup history. It was a huge shock. I remember that day. We lost to Bangladesh and it felt pathetic but Pakistan losing to Ireland topped it by a long way.
 
I rather lose out in the group stages than in the final.

1999 WC was the worst performance, despite winning most of the group games, and getting to the final.

1999 was the worst, not because we lost in the final, but because the 1999 team was arguably THE ODI team of the 90s in the world, the golden years of Pakistan cricket, some of the finest and most talented players to ever grace the game, yet we still lost to Bangladesh (it was their first ever ICC tournament), and crumbled in the final.

Save the Australia were the best team in the tournament malarky too, they reached the final through a freak and fluke result courtesy of Allan Donald in the SF.

This is what most of you newbie Pakistan supporters and pseudo Pakistan followers fail to realise - Pakistan can have the best team and lose, and have the worst team, and win.

So I would save the post 2023 WC wrist slitting knee jerk melodramatic drama bazi. Next WC (T20) is next year and don't be surprised if this exact Pakistan 2023 ODI team reach the SF/Finals with what most of you call 'mediocre' team.

Pakistan team has a mindset challenge, but Pakistan is and always will be blockbuster - win or lose - and remains the most dangerous and unpredictable side in the world - and no amount of post analysis, recommendations, or actions, will ever change this, and the sooner the newbies realise, the better.

Here's to T20 WC 2024 - It's in the bag!

🤍💚
 
Bhaijaan said:
Which World Cup has been worse ?

2007 or 2023 ?
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I think 2003 was even worse when you have really big names in the team. Wasim, waqar, anwar played their last games but only waseem was at retirement age and still the best bowler in that team. Average age of that team was high but except waseem no one else was too old to retire.
 
Of the ones I have seen from worst to best:

2015
2023
2019
2011

2015 we reached the quarters, so it's more of a personal thing rather than results based, even still we were so abject against an average windies side. I still remember being so frustrated at 1/4. Usual bad fielding meant Wahab bowled a great spell at Watson in that QF without the reward of his wicket. Took a useless Jamshed along who had long outstayed his welcome way past that one good India series he had.

The tournament just gone is probably the weakest I have seen our bowling. Yes people bring up 2015 with ehsan adil and sohail khan but sohail was actually decent back then, plus wahab was actually threatening, now we have a wahab esque bowler with a worse radar in rauf. Batsmen from every nation just could not wait to face this guy. Shaheen took wickets but was expensive for a lot of the games as he's clearly lost a yard of pace due to injuries and kept searching for a magic ball instead of sticking to basics. Spin bowling was abject beyond belief, could not keep things tight in the middle. To top it all off our batting was overly cautious, fakhar blasted his way to two wins but it was all a little too late.

2019 we only missed out on NRR but yet again, we had an awful outing against a windies side where we kept falling for the short ball bait time and again but after that we improved a lot, beating both eventual finalists. Didn't get too far off beating the aussies either. Amir delivered with wickets whilst keeping things tight, something that our run leaking bowlers failed to do this time around.

2011 is the one I most fondly remember. Only blip in the groups was when ross taylor murdered us. Spin bowling was leagues better than it is now, with afridi, hafeez and ajmal keeping things tight in the middle, lala finishing top of the wicket taking tree. Lost a close one to India in the semis, fielding being that one constant that has let us down no matter the campaign.
 
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