 The coach of the Pakistan cricket team, Intikhab Alam, has said
that he is rather pleased with his team's preparation for the ICC World T20 and
thinks that Pakistan has a good chance at winning the tournament. He said that
despite the ups and downs in this latest format of the game, he backed his team
to do really well in the tournament.
Alam was particularly happy about the entire process, where his team underwent
a conditioning camp and three warm-up games after participating in the domestic
T20 tournament, the RBS Cup. Incidentally, Sialkot Stallions went on
to win the tournament, and former ICL-discards Imran Nazir and Abdul Razzaq
made their comebacks count by scoring the maximum runs and capturing the most
number of wickets in the tournament respectively.
Alam was also thrilled with sports psychologist, Maqbool Babri's interaction
with his boys, especially because he stressed on the need to play well as a
team rather than for individual glory. Alam said, "Whether it's a Test
match, one-day or Twenty20 international, the sports psychologist has impressed
upon the guys that cricket is a team game and not about individuals."
There were mixed news for Alam in terms of players fitness though, as his controversial,
but ace pace-man, Shoaib Akhtar was earlier declared unfit and dropped
out of the squad, but Misbah-ul-Haq has been cleared of his groin injury and
will participate in the tournament. Akhtar had been diagnosed as suffering from
genital warts and will be replaced by Rao Anjum.
Misbah was Pakistan's best batsman in the 2007 edition of the ICC World T20,
and had brought them back in both the games that Pakistan played against India.
However, India had managed to stay calm under pressure and win the games; one
of them being that epic finals of the tournament.
Pakistan's team manager said that the Misbah injury wasn't serious and he could
have made an appearance in the RBS cup, but the team decided not to aggravate
the injury.
Pakistan will play a couple of warm-up games, including one against South
Africa on the 1st of June and another on the 3rd of June against arch-rivals,
India. After that, they begin with their campaign on the 7th of June against
the hosts, England, and play their other league game against Netherlands on
the 9th. Two of the three teams from every group advance to the next round of
the tournament.
|
