ICC World Cup 2023: It’s pack up for Pak

Even for those that had stayed back the end would have come as a reliefPakistan never quite suggesting they could make a match of it handed England a 93run victory at the Eden Gardens on Saturday dragging the hopelessly onesided joust to the 44th over England had put 337 for 9 on the board a target Babar amp Co couldnrsquot threaten even for a moment right through their lsquochasersquo Agha Salman got a fifty a few others got a start and the 10th wicket added 53 off 35 but it was all woefully inadequateAlso Read ICC World Cup 2023 League of their ownStokes entertains againBen Stokes flush from a 84ball 108 against the Netherlands on Wednesday played another entertaining innings hammering 84 in 76 deliveries to the delight of some 40000 who had turned up on the terraces despite so little being at stake in the match The southpaw surely in his final World Cup match hit 11 boundaries and a couple of sixes as Englandrsquos top order came good with Jonny Bairstow 59 off 61 and Joe Root 60 off 72 too making substantial contributions Root had gone without a fifty in his previous six matchesAlso ReadICC World Cup 2023 Records broken by Indian playersEnglandrsquos Ben Stokes en route his 84 against Pakistan at the Eden Gardens on Saturday PicPTIThe collective sigh of disappointment as Jos Buttler declared they would bat first had summed it up Pakistan faced with lsquoimpossiblersquo targets as options for a place in the semifinals had been dealt a killer blow even before the first ball had been bowled It was just as well because Babar Azam amp Co were thus set free to concentrate on a match they needed to win and salvage some pride As soon as the Pakistan reply had gone past the fourth ball of the seventh over it became officialmdashat the Wankhede on Wednesday itrsquoll be India versus New Zealand But by then the chance of completing a successful chase had all but gone out of the window with the openers back in the pavilionmdashamong them the bighitting Fakhar ZamanSolid start by EnglandEarlier Dawid Malan and Bairstow laid the platform for England with an opening stand of 82 both having to weather a passing storm as Shaheen Afridi and Haris Rauf found both pace and movement when they began The ball beat the outeredge often with Afridi bending it away from the lefthanded Malan and Rauf lsquoroughing uprsquo his righthanded partner Malan should have departed even before he had scored but Afridi failed to grab a return catch in his second over The lanky leftarm pacer would in his next spell give Ben Stokes then on 10 a reprieve in identical fashion and Pakistan were made to pay before Afridi made amends with a yorker that hit the base of the lefthandersrsquo offstumpSome skillful bowling at the lsquodeathrsquo by Rauf prevented England from an even bigger totalBrief scoresEngland 3379 in 50 overs B Stokes 84 J Root 60 J Bairstow 59 D Malan 31 H Rauf 364 S Afridi 272 M Wasim 274 beat Pakistan 244 all out in 433 overs A Salman 51 B Azam 38 M Rizwan 36 H Rauf 35 D Willey 356 G Atkinson A Rashid 255 M Ali 260 by 93 runs