Former Indian skipper Sachin Tendulkar believes that Pakistan may not be able to reach the semi-final stage of the ongoing ICC World Cup 2023.
The legendary cricketer, to the surprise of many, excluded the Green Shirts from the top four despite the team’s rankings.
Tendulkar tipped the four semi-finalists on Thursday after carrying the World Cup trophy out onto the pitch to signal the start of the event in India.
The World Cup winner thinks that India can repeat their historic effort on home soil from 2011.
“I hope so, because our team is playing good cricket, and if the team continues to keep things simple and stick to basics, they have the ammunition,” Tendulkar said and added that India is a very, very good and balanced team.
“So is the case with Australia, I feel they have a balanced team.
“The third one I would say would be England. England again are a very strong team, a combination of experience and some new faces.
“My fourth team would be New Zealand. They have played the finals in 2015 and 2019. If you look at their track record, New Zealand in world championships have always done well and I see them getting to the semis.”
On the first day of the ICC tournament, the Kiwis thrashed England by nine wickets, demonstrating again their knack of punching above their weight in showpiece events.
Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra smashed rapid unbeaten centuries to set up New Zealand’s successful pursuit of a 283-run victory target, which they reached with 13.4 overs to spare.
It was a rematch of the heart-stopping 2019 final at Lord’s in which England were declared winners via a now-scrapped boundary countback rule after the game had ended in a tie.
It is yet to be seen how the other picks of Sachin Tendulkar would play but the exclusion of Pakistan from the list of semi-fanalists shows that Indian legend is showing bias towards their arch-rivals.
