Win over India was best moment for Pakistan in 2021: Babar

Pakistan captain Babar Azam termed the jinx-breaking win over India in the Men’s T20 World Cup in the UAE as the “best moment” for his team in the year gone by.

Summing up 2021 in a podcast which was released by the Pakistan Cricket Board on Friday, Babar said that beating India for the first time in a World Cup match was the highest point. Pakistan defeated its arch-rival India by 10 wickets at the Dubai International Stadium in a lop-sided group-phase contest.

“It was a fantastic achievement for us as a team because we had not been able to beat India in the World Cups for so many years. It was our best moment of the year,” Babar said. He added that the dominant win over India lifted the profile of the team and gave the players enormous confidence, which was visible in the T20I and Test wins in Bangladesh and later at home against the West Indies.

Babar said that losing to eventual title-winner Australia in the semi-final stage of the T20 World Cup was the most disappointing for the side. “That defeat hurt me the most because we had been playing so well and as a combined unit,” Babar revealed in the podcast.