Pakistan's cricket fans and critics were disappointed over its national men cricket team's performance in Guangzhou Asian Games though it won a bronze medal after beating Sri Lanka on Friday.

They said the Pakistani team was the heart favorite of the event but due to poor planning and team efforts they lost to Afghanistan, world's lowest ranked team.

Srafraz Nawaz, Pakistan's former fast bowler, criticized the team selection which featured in the event and termed the defeat disgraceful.

"Pakistan is one of the top Test status nations and has world class players but our defeat by Afghanistan is shameful," Nawaz told Xinhua.

Pakistan's hopes to win a gold medal in men's cricket event ended on Thursday after the Afghan cricket team stun everyone by beating Pakistan by 22 runs.

In the first ever match between the two sides, Pakistan won the toss and selected to field first. Taking advantage from the situation and poor bowling from Pakistani bowlers, Afghanistan scored 125-8 in their 20 overs before limiting Pakistan's overconfident batsmen to just 103-7 in 20 overs.

Afghan captain Mohammad Nabi termed the victory a big win for the country and said they had made the whole nation happy.

Pakistani cricket board officials accepted the defeat with some excuses, saying the team they sent was of third rank in the country because top two national teams were busy in other international assignments.

Bangladesh cricket team took the gold medal after defeating Afghanistan later on Friday.

(Xinhua News Agency November 26, 2010)