{"id":272094,"date":"2025-11-19T18:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T18:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/272094\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T18:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T18:33:10","slug":"pakistan-asias-second-best-team-sikandar-raza-gives-african-answer-to-reporter-flips-script-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/272094\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan Asia&#8217;s second best team? Sikandar Raza gives &#8216;African&#8217; answer to reporter; flips script | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/lk-52.jpg\" alt=\"Pakistan Asia's second best team? Sikandar Raza gives 'African' answer to reporter; flips script\" title=\"Photo credit: X\/@ZimCricketv\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/>Photo credit: X\/@ZimCricketv Zimbabwe captain <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/sikandar-raza\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sikandar Raza<\/a> gave a direct response to a question he felt was unrelated during a press conference in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, ahead of the T20I tri-series also featuring Pakistan and Sri Lanka. His exchange with a Pakistani reporter has spread widely on social media.Raza was <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ZimCricketv\/status\/1990431916793749571\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\">speaking to the media <\/a>a day before the opening match of the tournament between Pakistan and Zimbabwe. During the interaction, a reporter tried to involve him in an online debate by asking him to rank the best T20 teams in Asia and whether Zimbabwe were facing the first, second or third-best Asian side in the tri-series.The exchange went as follows:&#8221;There is a debate going on social media. I need an honest opinion from you. Who is the second-best and best T20 team in Asia? From Sikandar\u2019s point of view, is Zimbabwe playing the second-best or the third-best Asian teams in this tri-series,&#8221; the reporter asked.Raza replied, &#8220;Since I am in a national jersey, all I will tell you is that Zimbabwe is the second-best team in Africa. I don\u2019t care who the first or second-best team in Asia is. I&#8217;ll address that when I am not in national jersey. Right now, my focus is on my team. This is a press conference for a Zimbabwe captain, so I should answer questions about Zimbabwe. I personally don\u2019t care who the first, second, third or fourth-best team in Asia. We\u2019re the second-best team in Africa, and we\u2019re looking to build on that. We\u2019re trying to challenge the best team in Africa, which is South Africa.&#8221;Raza also reacted to a question about whether Zimbabwe reaching the final of the tri-series would be seen as an upset.\u201cIt might be an upset for you. I can read the room. Maybe you people are not giving us too much of a chance,\u201d he said.Pakistan secured a hard-fought five-wicket victory over Zimbabwe in the opening match of the T20I Tri-Series at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, but not before they faced scares in both innings.Pakistan, chasing a modest 148, were put under pressure on multiple occasions but key contributions from Fakhar Zaman (44), Usman Khan (37*) and Mohammad Nawaz (21) made sure that the hosts got over the line with four balls remaining.<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo credit: X\/@ZimCricketv Zimbabwe captain Sikandar Raza gave a direct response to a question he felt was unrelated&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[111884,1721,21236,111882,54300,101,111883,56,54,55,54302,111881],"class_list":["post-272094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-african-cricket-teams","tag-cricket","tag-pakistan-cricket-team","tag-pakistan-vs-zimbabwe","tag-sikandar-raza","tag-sports","tag-t20i-tri-series","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-zimbabwe-cricket","tag-zimbabwe-t20i-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}