ICC World Cup 2023: Pakistan media reaction after defeat to South Africa - 'Playing Dil Dil Pakistan didn't help at Chepauk'

Pakistan's run at the ICC World Cup 2023 is turning bad to worse as Babar Azam and Co. slumped to their consecutive fourth defeat, an embarrassing first in their World Cup history. Pakistan media were expectedly not too pleased with the result and the nation's leading English daily Dawn suggested that Babar Azam and Co. are fast running out of excuses.

The latest defeat came against South Africa at MA Chidambaram or Chepauk in Chennai on Friday (October 24). Pakistan's latest nail-biting 1-wicket defeat to South Africa came despite the atmosphere being in their favour, wrote the Daily.

"With the country's unofficial anthem - Dil Dil Pakistan - being played at the Cheupak... Pakistan finally had the atmosphere they'd been craving, the sounds they wanted to be ringing in their ears, the positive energy they needed to spur them on during what has been a spiralling World Cup campaign," wrote Dawn.

The mention of the atmosphere comes after Pakistan cricket team director Mickey Arthur suggested that the condition the India vs Pakistan match in Ahmedabad on October 14 heavily tilted towards India. He said 'Dil Dil Pakistan' was never played once during the match while it felt more like a BCCI event than ICC's.

Michael Vaughan later took a jibe on Arthur saying it was Rohit Sharma's masterstroke to ask the DJ not to play 'Dil Dil Pakistan' during the match. However, Pakistan's batting and bowling has lacked quality players, especially the middle-order has come under heavy criticism.

While the bowling effort was praised, which allowed Pakistan to remain in the game until the last delivery but batter's failure to play their full quota of 50 overs faced flaks. Babar Azam and Abdullah Shafique scored half centuries but were criticised for batting at slow strike rate.

"Babar Azam, having three half-centuries to his name, has the lowest strike rate among the batters with scores in excess of 50 runs. His innings against South Africa today came at a strike rate of 76.92 and faced 66 balls to score 50 runs," wrote The News International.

A London-based Pakistani journalist, Ihtisham Ul Haq, said Babar Azam and Co's late fightback against South Africa was not showing the body language of a team trying to win but a team trying to 'avert disaster'.

"There wasn't a genuine fight. What happened at the end, filled with 'ifs' & 'buts,' can be dismissed. Your body language doesn't reflect a winning team. Skip shouldn't claim that we fought until the end. This wasn't a battle; it was merely an attempt to avert disaster, one in which you, too, couldn't succeed," Ihtisham wrote.

Another Pakistan journalist, Arfa Feroz Zake (GeoNews) wrote: "We have never seen our captain with such a low confidence and dropped shoulders ever! Number one batter does not deserves such a shocking performance by his team in the WorldCup. Babar Azam deserved better in this WorldCup!"

A few days ago after an unexpected defeat to Afghanistan, senior Pakistani journalist Shahid Hashmi took to Twitter to vent out his anger that it was the 'saddest day' of his professional life since he started covering Pakistan cricket. The journalist has been covering ICC World Cup 2023 in India.

"This Pakistan team is not as bad and shocking as it has performed... I have never seen such a hapless Pakistan team.. I was unable to control my emotions ... saddest day in my cricket coveting career ... (sic)" Hashmi tweeted.