Former Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq said the Indian team was “under pressure” and “scared” even before their T20 World Cup 2021 match against Pakistan had started. India lost their World Cup opener to Pakistan by 10 wickets – their first-ever defeat against the neighbours after 12 straight wins in all World Cup matches in different formats. India could never really recover from the early jolt and were knocked out from the Super 12 stage. India lost their next match to New Zealand by 8 wickets and even though they recovered by winning their next three matches against Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia, it was not enough to take them forward to the semi-finals.

Questioning the body language of Indian players, Inzamam said the toss interview involving India skipper Virat Kohli and his Pakistan counterpart Babar Azam was evident that the official hosts were under pressure.

“I feel the Indians were scared even before the match started. Their body language, if you see Virat Kohli and Babar Azam’s interview at the toss, you could sense who was under pressure,” Inzamam said on ARY News.

India lost openers Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul to left-arm seamer Shaheen Shah Afridi, which put them under a lot of pressure but Inzamam felt the double wicket in the first three overs had little do with how the match shaped up.

“Our team’s body language was much better than theirs. It wasn’t that India were under pressure after Rohit Sharma’s dismissal. Sharma himself was under pressure. It was evident that they all were under pressure even before the match began,” Inzamam added.

Pakistan’s third highest run-scorer in Test matches said India entered the tournament as one of the favourites but their performance was not up to the mark against Pakistan and New Zealand.

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“Indian team never plays the way they did. They are a good T20 team, there is no doubt about it. If you look at their performance in the last 2-3 years, they were the favourites. But that India-Pakistan match put so much pressure on them that there was no looking back.

“Their feet weren’t moving at all. After losing to Pakistan, they were handed so much criticism and there was a 3-4 day break. The poor guys couldn’t even play Santner and Sodhi. They are such good players of spin. That pressure mounted on them.” Inzamam said.