5 Reasons Why India Lost to Pakistan at the T20 World Cup

The much-hyped ICC T20 World Cup match between India and Pakistan turned out to be a horrendous affair for Virat Kohli and his men as the Men in Green managed to finally break their 29-year-old losing streak and finally beat India at a World Cup. It would not only have been Indian fans that were cursing India's performance, anyone doing T20 World Cup Betting on this match would have lost plenty of money to those confident enough to bet on Pakistan to win.

So what happened to India? Let's take a look at five reasons why India lost to Pakistan on Sunday evening.

Body Language and Intent

The intent that Pakistan came into this match with as well as their body language was a lot better than that on show from the Indian players. Despite have the big match winners in their side, India really had no answer to a professional and fired up Pakistani team. The bowling on display by Pakistan in the opening six overs was top-quality, and caused some of the best players in the world a whole host of issues. We believe that the Indian team had a bit too much confidence and went into this match believing that they just had to show up to win the game.

The Dew Factor

Now, we are definitely not using this as an excuse as to why India lost this match, but the dew definitely would not have helped. The Indian bowlers during the second half of the game struggled with the length and line, and Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan took full advantage and smacked the Indian bowlers all around the field. The main reason why all of the Indian bowlers struggled so much must have been because they were struggling to grip the ball properly due to the fact that it was wet from all the dew.

The Loss of Both Openers Early

KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma opened the innings for India, and the former opened his team's account with a single from the third ball. This was Sharma's seventh T20 World Cup while Rahul has nearly 50 T20I caps for his country, so India fans were hoping that they would use their ample experience to give their side a strong start.

However, before they could even get started, Rohit was out LBW in the first over, and Rahul followed him back to the pavilion at the start of the next over - although replays have since shown it was a no-ball. Both openers scored 3 runs between them, the lowest number of runs scored by an Indian opening pair at a T20 Cricket World Cup, completely defying the expectations for online cricket betting.

Poor Shot Selection

After losing both openers early, it looked like India were recovering a bit. Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav started to play some aggressive shots and were getting some runs on the board. However, in the final over of the Powerplay, Yadav decided to play a completely unnecessary shot and was dismissed by Hasan Ali. With 60 runs on the board after 10 overs, India did not need more foolish shot selections, but Rishabh Pant, just as soon as he looked like he was getting going, played a bad shot to a wrong one and was dismissed. Ravi Jadeja also lost his wicket to a poor shot choice.

A Quality All-Round Performance from Pakistan

When your team has lost heavily it is very easy to look at what they did wrong, but we should not forget to give credit to the Pakistan team. Yes, they are our bitter rivals, but credit has to be given where it is due. Not only did they bowl better than us (although, as mentioned above, this could be because of the dew), but they batted much better too, and sometimes you have just got to take your hat off to the opposition and give them the credit that they deserve. The bowling from Shaheen Afridi at the start of the match was outstanding, while the Pakistani openers did not give our bowlers a sniff.

We made a T20 World Cup 2021 prediction for this match and got it horribly wrong, just like the Indian team did. However, all the signs really did point to an India win, and the cricket betting odds also backed our prediction. We all have bad days at the office, and we expect Kohli and his team to put things right in their next game!