Pakistan coach Grant Bradburn and team director Mickey Arthur were not amused by the way the crowd at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad treated them during their World Cup 2023 match against India on Saturday. India outplayed Pakistan to beat them by seven wickets and go on top of the points table with a dazzling performance in front of more than one lakh people in the world’s largest cricket stadium but the pratison crowd in India’s favour did not go down well with the Pakistan coaches.
Both Arthur and Bradburn agreed that they were not expecting great support but not to any Pakistan fans in the sea of blue was certainly surprising. Arthur in fact, went on to state that it felt like a BCCI-organised bilateral cricket match rather than an ICC event.
“Look, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t,” Arthur said when asked if the huge crowd all in favour of India had any role in Pakistan’s below-par performance. “It didn’t seem like an ICC event to be brutally honest. It seemed like a bilateral series; it seemed like a BCCI event.”
Arthur also went on to complain about the choice of music during the match which was heavily loaded in favour of India. “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, the Indian players tonight,” he added.
When asked if this was allowed in an ICC event like the World Cup, Arthur dodged the question by saying he doesn’t want to get fined by commenting on it. “Look I don’t think I can’t comment on that just yet. I don’t want to get fined,” he said.
Bardburn too complained about the in-stadia music during the match. “Naturally that was going to be the case. We are really sad that our supporters aren’t here, they would love to be here and I am sure Indian cricket fans would love our supporters here as well. It was certainly unusual in that way, no familiar music for us today. So it did not feel like a World Cup game, honestly. We didn’t expect anything else. We love the occasion and we are disappointed that we did not do justice to the occasion or justice to our many fans at home and globally,” he said in the ICC mixed zone after the match.
