The criticism the team is facing is justified: Mohammad Rizwan

Mohammad Rizwan said Pakistan deserve all the criticism they are receiving after their group-stage exit from the recently concluded T20 World Cup in the West Indies and the USA. The Men in Green could only win one of their four group games and failed to qualify for the Super 8s.

Pakistan started the competition with defeats against the USA and India before defeating Canada and Ireland. The USA, however, ended the group stage with five points and made it through to the next round alongside India. 

"The criticism the team is facing is justified, and we deserve this since we didn’t perform in accordance with expectations. Players who can’t face criticism won’t be able to succeed,” Rizwan told reporters in Peshawar. 

“We are disappointed with our performance in the T20 World Cup. There are multiple reasons behind our losses. When a team loses, one can’t say that bowling and batting is doing well.” 

Rizwan himself didn’t have a great tournament, scoring 110 runs at a strike rate of just 90.90. Pakistan even failed to chase down a target of 120 against their arch-rivals India. PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi recently said that Pakistan cricket needs a “major surgery” and Rizwan agrees.

“Operations are a normal thing. When a person is ill, operation is necessary. PCB Chairman is a hard-working person. The decision about who will remain in the team and who will not is the chairman's right. Chairman PCB has the right to perform surgery on the Pakistan team. 

“What people say is that we don't care about people. As I said in the beginning, people didn't have this expectation from us. But maybe they went so far in this anger that they said that there was politics in the team, there were different things in the team. If there were different things, then we wouldn't have performed before.”

If you’ve not downloaded the Cricket.com app yet, you’re missing out — big time. Play Fantasy on Cricket.com NOW! Download the App here.