Pakistan men's cricket team director Mickey Arthur seemed miffed with the organisation of the India versus Pakistan World Cup 2023 clash at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Saturday, October 14. The game saw a sea of blue turn up for the occasion and the contest hardly witnessed any support for the Babar Azam-led side.
For a team like Pakistan, who are playing a marquee tournament of such a magnitude for the first time in India since the 2016 T20 World Cup it was always going to be tough and that's what it eventually turned out to be.
Devoid of fan support, the Pakistan players had a shocker in the middle and went on to lose the contest by seven wickets in a game that saw India dominate thoroughly. The Pakistan fans are still awaiting their visas so the trend might continue for the Green Brigade.
Speaking after the game during the post-match press conference, Arthur pinpointed the lack of support for Pakistan and mentioned "that it does play a role" in such contests.
"It didn’t seem like an ICC event to be brutally honest. It seemed like a bilateral series; it seemed like a BCCI event. I didn’t hear Dil Dil Pakistan coming through the microphones too often tonight.
"So yes, that does play a role, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse because for us it was about living the moment, it was about the next ball and it was about how we were going to combat the Indian players tonight," said Arthur in the press conference.
Pakistan were outplayed by the Rohit Sharma-led side and the moments for them to rejoice were very few and far between. There was a brief phase when it appeared that the Pakistan batters had things in control as they were scoring a flurry of boundaries at regular intervals but those odd moments didn't trigger any cheer from the crowd that had gathered to witness the fixture.
