Most of the Pakistani team members have not played in India before, but captain Babar Azam exuded confidence on Tuesday and said his team has done its homework for the ODI World Cup that starts on October 5. The Pakistani team’s visas were finally approved on Monday evening and they will reach Hyderabad via Dubai on Wednesday. Only Mohammad Nawaz and Agha Salman have played in India before. Babar could not travel to India for the 2016 T20 World Cup due to injury.
“Although we have not played in India before, we are not putting too much pressure. We have done our research and we have heard that the conditions are similar to how they play out in other Asian countries,” Babar said in the media before departure. conference.
“It is a great honor for me to travel as captain this time, I hope we come back with a trophy this time,” he added.
Azam, one of the leading batters in the match, is expected to score a bag full of runs for his team in the ICC showpiece. He is especially looking forward to the big match against India in Ahmedabad on October 14.
“I am excited to play in Ahmedabad as it will be busy. I will do my best to fulfill my potential. I am not worried about my individual accolades, I want to make sure that whatever I do contributes to the result for the match.” team… Whenever I have a tour coming up, I spend some time planning it [the teams I have to face] and setting goals for myself. I try to set goals for myself and then I give 100%.
“It’s an opportunity to become a hero because every World Cup performance gives you a different kind of confidence. Everyone is at their best during the World Cup, so every time you perform there it’s a completely different feeling,” he said.
Pakistan, who looked like the team to beat before the start of the Asia Cup, returned empty-handed from the continental event won by India. Their star player Naseem Shah has been ruled out of the World Cup and they are facing problems in both the bowling and batting departments.
“We know we have regressed in fielding and in our ability to take wickets in the middle overs, but we are going to work on them and hopefully we won’t repeat them as we have made plans accordingly… The more you play cricket , the more you learn.” He stressed the need to support struggling players, pointing to players like Fakhar Zaman and Shadab Khan, who did not have the best of times in the Asia Cup.
“When you play well and you are in good shape, you want to keep playing. But when you make mistakes it is different. You judge it differently, you have to work on it, especially when a key player is struggling.”
“You have to be more supportive of your struggling player because he’s going to be criticized from the outside. Giving him confidence in the locker room becomes even more important because these are the same guys who have consistently won over you.”
“There has been a lot of criticism about the spinners (Shadab and Nawaz). They have had some bad days but they are not ordinary players. It is not easy to play for the Pakistan team; they got here because of their performances. I have complete confidence in it.”
The visas for India were delayed, but this did not cause Babar any extra stress. “The visas are there, as far as I know, so we should be ready to go. As for the (player) contracts, they are still being negotiated, but we are hopeful that they will work out as the PCB always our opinion.” interests first,” said the 28-year-old. Babar said the team will miss the services of injured pacer Naseem Shah.
Hasan Ali has been named Shah’s replacement and Babar said he was chosen because of his wealth of experience.
“Of course we will miss Naseem Shah as Shaheen [Afridi] and Naseem bowling together gave us another advantage. It wasn’t easy to choose his replacement, but we all sat together and got input from him [chief selector] Inzamam ul Haq.
“We went with Hasan Ali because he has experience. He has played the World Cup before. I cannot say who will bowl the new ball or the old ball because we cannot reveal our strategies at the moment.
“But we have not made any concrete plans at the moment. It will become clearer to us when we travel to India and assess the conditions,” Babar concluded.
Topics mentioned in this article
