3 min readFeb 16, 2026 10:41 AM IST
Waqar Younis couldn’t stop marveling at India’s batting riches and the quality of its batsmen, some of whom didn’t even play as India registered their biggest margin victory over Pakistan by 61 runs in a routine T20 World Cup game at Colombo.
While the batsmen kept up the tempo starting with pocket rocket Ishan Kishan right down to the “long levered Shivam Dube”, Younis said India were a formidable batting unit as is. “But what’s great is the quality of some of the guys they left out. Someone like Yashasvi Jaiswal, I really like his batting. And will want to see him come in and bat some day. But overall it’s a very strong team and theres the bench and others outside,” he said post the match, flanked by presenter Mayanti Langer, Sunil Gavaskar and Abhishek Nayar.
He was understandably disappointed with Pakistan’s bowlers, who he reckoned were not prepared for the long haul after they claimed Abhishek Sharma for a duck. “While batting needs to be aggressive at all times in T20, bowling is different. You need to stay consistent and disciplined. They thought they had the early advantage with dismissing Abhishek Sharma for a duck, and bowled as if the job was done. The captain allowed Ishan Kishan to score, and the spinners did not stay disciplined at all. We have been speaking about Usman Tariq for two weeks now, and he bowled well. Bur Salman held him back and didn’t bring him on earlier. The Indian batsmen took advantage of that indiscipline.”
Shaheen Shah looked a pale version of himself, conceding 31 in 2 overs after not taking the new ball. And Abrar Ahmed and Shadab were quite ineffective, their combined 4 overs milked for 55 runs. Saim Ayub stayed impressive, applying the brakes, but Pakistan had never done enough to control Indian surge of runs, with the captain’s decisions in bowling changes, baffling for Younis. But mostly, the bowling lacked discipline, he said.
On Pakistan’s shambolic batting, Younis said the match was out of their hands after the steep target was set itself as 170+ turned out to get a very good score. “They had no chance after the early collapse,” he stated. Pakistan, that is.
