The former lanky pacer of the Indian cricket team, Ishant Sharma, has slammed the Pakistan cricket team and their current downfall across formats, for which they have faced an incredible amount of pressure from their fans. He revealed that in the past, the pressure used to be on the Indian side due to the presence of Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar, and others. 

Ishant also reckoned that the pressure now has shifted towards the Pakistan side due to the incredible skill and talent the Indian side possesses at the moment. In the last seven clashes of the two sides in the shortest format, the Blue Brigade have won all of them, out of which two have come during this ongoing 2025 season of the Asia Cup.

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“Pakistan already has so much pressure on it. How will they handle more from us? If you look at the matches, their fans in the crowd are always shouting behind them from the stands. Actually, sometimes I feel bad for them.” The former Indian fast bowler expressed this during the recent podcast.

Ishant Sharma criticizes Pakistan’s downfall in recent times

Pakistan won the tri-series in the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan, defeating the latter in the final. However, despite that, there were several situations in the series where they couldn’t put in a dominant performance with both bat and ball in hand and ended up on the losing side.

“The pressure will be high (during an India vs Pakistan match), but that was more when they had great players like Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shoaib Akhtar, Saqlain Mushtaq, Afridi... these were great players. The kind of talent, exposure, and infrastructure we have they are not even close.” Ishant addressed.

In this ongoing Asia Cup, Pakistan won both their group-stage clash against Oman and the UAE, besides losing to India twice. However, they won the do-or-die clash against Sri Lanka and now have a chance to qualify for the final in a potential virtual quarter-final against Bangladesh two days before the final of the competition. However, it won’t be the case if Bangladesh gets the better of India in Dubai on September 24.