We lost because of brainless captaincy: Shoaib Akhtar lashes out at Pakistan's cricket team

Former fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar has something to say about the match Pakistan lost against India this Sunday - and it's not pretty.

In a video message recorded after the match, Akhtar presented his own analysis of what went wrong on the pitch.

He doesn't mince any words for the Pakistani cricket team, starting from the point that captain Sarfaraz Ahmed should have chosen to bat first once he had won the toss.

"How can a captain be so brainless? He didn't even think that we do not chase well?" He then addressed Sarfaraz directly, saying, "Knowing that our strength is not batting, it's bowling... when we won the toss we had won half the match then and there, but what did you do? You tried your hardest that we should not win the match. So yet again, brainless captaincy, brainless management. There was no thinking, all the players were on dimensional... but again, the toss was very crucial to win it. And on that, even if we had made 260, we would have been able to defend it."

He also had words for bowler Hassan Ali, saying: "What mindset was he playing with? The mindset that 'I should continue playing in T20, that I should be a PSL player, I should keep getting contracts in PSL. I don't know what he wants to achieve."

He moved on, saying: "I got 3 players out on this very ground. Because I performed match-winning bowling." He reminded everyone that Pakistan's biggest players including Shahid Afridi could not win a match while chasing a target on this very ground in 1999, which proves that Pakistan has a bad history of chasing targets. "It's very saddening and this is a disheartening performance by a Pakistani team captain... he should have used his brain, but he tried really hard to not use it," he added.

Akhtar also praised the Indian team, saying: "When India came to play, Rohit Sharma batted very strongly. When he makes 100, he makes a very strong 100."