India and Pakistan share one of the most followed rivalries in world cricket as the political relations between the two nations make it even more intense. However, the political tensions didn’t allow the two countries to play against each other in bilateral series and only clash in multi-nation tournaments organised by International Cricket Council (ICC) and Asian Cricket Council (ACC). Interestingly, India enjoy domination over Pakistan in ICC World Cup events as they lost only once to them and that too came last year during the 2021 T20 World Cup.
Former pacer Shoaib Akhtar talked about the rivalry between the two teams and suggested that Pakistan used to take added pressure on themselves due to the intense rivalry between the two countries and World Cup.
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“We, as (the) Pakistan team, used to play against India, why don’t you just play it as a normal match? We had come (into the 1999 World Cup) beating India in ODIs as well as Tests in their backyard. (It was) just the added pressure of the World Cup as well as the huge hype," Akhtar said on Star Sports.
The Rawalpindi Express further said that media played a huge role in building the hype and Pakistan players felt that pressure after watching television.
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“Pakistan team used to get pressurized by that hype. This hype was created by TV (media) and we all used to watch TV," he added.
Akhtar shared a great on-field rivalry with legendary batter Sachin Tendulkar as the latter dominated the pacer in ICC events.
Tendulkar had memorable outings against Pakistan in the 1999 and 2003 World Cup where he batted in sublime touch, especially versus Akhtar.
“This Pakistan team used to get to the ground against India with unnecessary pressure. We even choked in the 2003 World Cup. But Sachin played me the best during the 1999 World Cup. All the other batters were scared of me at that time. Many batters of the world used to stop moving their feet against me," Akhtar added.
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