'I feel people have started to hate me, believe I'm incapable of playing for Pakistan': Pacer opens up on T20 WC blunder
The Pakistan pacer spoke in detail about his struggles and talked about his current mindset, as he intends to make a strong comeback for the side.
In Australia's first tour to the country in 24 years, Pakistan endured a disappointing 0-1 loss to the visitors in the Test series earlier this year. After two dull draws in Rawalpindi and Karachi, Australia defeated the hosts by 115 runs in Lahore to clinch the series. Pakistan did beat the Aussies 2-1 in the ODI series before facing a defeat in the one-off T20I against the visiting side. The tour marked Australia and Pakistan meeting for the first time since the semi-final of the T20 World Cup last year as well, where the Aussies had defeated the side to reach the title clash.
Pakistan pacer Hasan Ali had infamously dropped Matthew Wade in the 19th over of the run-chase, as Australia had reached the 177-run target with an over to spare. Ali faced significant backlash on social media following the incident, but continues to be part of the side. During Australia's tour to the country earlier this year, Ali was part of the squad in all formats, but made scattered appearances.
While he took 2 wickets in the Test series (playing in 2 matches), he remained wicketless in the only ODI he played in Lahore. In the T20, he registered figures of 0/30.
Currently, Hasan Ali is representing Lancashire in the English County Championships and the Pakistan star, in an interview, opened up on the dropped catch in the T20 WC last year.
“That dropped catch in the semi-final against Australia did give me nightmares for a couple of nights. I was in deep shock and felt very low for letting the side down at that point and couldn’t figure out how and why I dropped that catch. Especially given that as an individual and a team we trained very hard on our fielding so it was a tough pill to swallow for me but as a professional I do know that such things can happen again, just like dropped catches have happened in the past as well,” Ali told Pakistan's cricket website PakPassion.
The 27-year-old fast bowler further revealed he feels people “hate” him, but added that he will continue to work on his game.
“Of course, for me it’s more painful because I feel that people have started to hate me and started believing that I am incapable of playing for Pakistan. Obviously, this would have been a different story had I held on to that catch but that is the past and no one can change that,” said Hasan.
"All I know is that as a professional, I have to move on which I have done, but it will be difficult for me to forget that and whether I like it or not, this tag will remain with me forever. But then this is the strange thing about cricket because in our practice sessions during that tournament, I caught close to 500 catches without dropping any!
“Of course, there is no guarantee that I will take all my catches in the future, but what I can assure everyone is that I will continue to work hard on all aspects of my game.”
