Where did it go wrong for Pakistan?

Where did Pakistan lose the match? Did they lose it at the toss when they put India to bat? Did they lose it in overs 5-8 when Ishan Kishan helped India plunder 52 runs? Or did they lose it in the powerplay after which they were 38 for 4?

For Pakistan's head coach Mike Hesson, it was the last two segments where his players made bad decisions and tactical errors as India suffocated them with pressure. It resulted in a demoralizing 61-run defeat for Pakistan, which is more than five times their previous margin of defeat against India which earlier was by 11 runs.

While Saim Ayub was defeated by the fast, swinging yorker from Jasprit Bumrah, the trio of Sahibzada Farhan, Salman Agha and Babar Azam confounded everyone with their shot selection.

It is never easy to do quick and honest assessment immediately after such a embarrassing defeat, but Hesson was frank.

"When the guys are putting you under pressure, are you going to stick to your basics or are you going to go away from that?," Hesson said. "And that's going to be a real challenge as the tournament progresses: we'll be put under pressure again and that's how we respond when you are under the pump.

"All these guys are international players, they're all good players, but when the pressure comes on are they going to trust the decision making or are they going to probably go outside there? And today, pressure made us go outside there and that's something that for us to progress further in this tournament, it's something we are going to have to get better at."

Hesson agreed the batters succumbed to overthinking and hence are likely to have wanted to bat like "Superman" to scale the target India had set, which he felt was 25 runs above par. And that happens, Hesson said, due to magnitude of pressure in an India-Pakistan match.

"I think they can (overthink)," he said. "When you see a score and you know that it's probably a little bit above par, you almost feel like you're going to play like a Superman and take the game on earlier than the conditions allow you to.

"We lost wickets early on to shots that I'm sure on that surface they were pretty tough, tough options. On a quicker surface, (like) SSC, might be a little bit different. So it is about adapting and we've been really good the last few months about adapting to different conditions. Today we probably took a little step back."

While Agha had said on Saturday that toss cannot determine the result, which he stressed is dependent on how plans are executed across the 40 overs, the question on whether Pakistan had done the right by putting India in grew louder by the minute. But for Hesson, it was not a wrong decision to field first.

"Both sides were going to bowl first because the pitch was soft and the ball spun twice as much in the first innings than the second," he said. "The ball skidded on (in the first innings). So there's nothing wrong with the decision to bowl first."

Comparisons were also drawn with the Australia-Zimbabwe match, which the latter won after electing to bat first, but Hesson did not agree with that. "There was talk before about the Australia game, it was a day game. This is a night game, nothing to do with the toss, it was just execution."

Pakistan, Hesson pointed out, were "outplayed" by India and the dressing room was hurting.

"It's a pretty disappointed dressing room in there at the moment because they know how much it means to Pakistan," Hesson said. "And we are really disappointed we didn't play as well as we could, but we're also part of the tournament and we know in tournament play that it's not always going to go your way. So our job is to pick ourselves up and make sure that we're very good in two or three days."

Pakistan play Namibia next, on February 18 at the SSC ground, which will be their last match in the group phase. Pakistan have to win that match to avoid getting into a tussle with USA, who are now second behind India on the points table but have played all their four matches.