Pak Army spokesperson congratulates NZ on semi-final win against India

New Delhi: Pakistan Army spokesperson Asif Ghafoor on Wednesday congratulated the New Zealand cricket team on defeating India in the semi-final match of the ongoing ICC Men's Cricket World Cup in England.

"Congrats Team New Zealand. A scintillating win to reach ICC WC Final. Team reflected spirit and sportsmanship carried from a great nation with moral values. @jacindaardern @BLACKCAPS #ValuesMatter #SurpriseByNZ," Ghafoor tweeted.

Pakistan failed to leave a mark in the World Cup as the side was unable to reach the knock-out stages. The team finished at the fifth position in the group stage with just 11 points from nine matches.

The team lost their first match against West Indies by a whopping margin and since then, Pakistan's net run-rate suffered and the side was playing catch-up cricket since then.

If England had lost their matches against India and New Zealand, then Pakistan would have gone through to the semi-final. But England ended up winning their matches and this put Pakistan under a lot of pressure.

Pakistan had to defeat Bangladesh by more than 315-run margin to go through to the knock-out stage. But it just managed to score 315 runs against Bangladesh and they were not able to restrict the team to under seven runs to progress ahead in the tournament.

The Green Shirts ended up winning the match but their hopes of going ahead were dashed.

Before the Pakistan-Bangladesh match, skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed had said that the side would look to score 500 runs against Bangladesh and this statement created a lot of laughs on Twitter.

"We have to be realistic, but we will try to score 500 runs against Bangladesh. We have to score 500 runs and try to bowl out Bangladesh for 50. We will try to win the match," he had said.

In pursuit of 240, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and KL Rahul all scored just one run and this is the first time in the history of cricket that the first three batsmen of any team were dismissed for one run each.

Sharma and Rahul were dismissed by Mark Henry whereas Kohli was sent back to the pavilion by Trent Boult. Their dismissals restricted to India to 5/3. Dinesh Karthik (6) also failed to leave a mark and his dismissal pegged India back at 24/4.

Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya stitched together a partnership of 47 runs but their resistance ended as Pant (32) was sent back to the pavilion by Mitchell Santner. Pandya also departed after playing a knock of 32 runs as he was dismissed by Santner.

Earlier, the tail-enders dragged New Zealand to post 239 for the loss of eight against India in the first semi-final of the Cricket World Cup at Old Trafford on Wednesday.

Picking up from where they left a day after rain halted the match, New Zealand added 28 runs to the scoreboard to finish their 50-over quota.

For India, Bhuvneshwar Kumar was the pick of bowlers as he returned with three wickets in his 10 overs quota and gave away just 43 runs.