KANDY, March 11: Pakistan cricketers, still smarting from their crushing 110-run defeat against New Zealand three nights ago in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 preliminary round tie, played a ‘match’ amongst themselves during an intense training session at the Asgiriya International Stadium here on Friday.
The Asgiriya ground, which belongs to Kandy’s most revered educational institute, Trinity College, and is some 18 kilometres away from the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium, was thronged by the Pakistani cricketers for the second day running as they continued their preparations for Monday’s Group ‘A’ fixture against Zimbabwe.Waqar Younis, the team coach, acted as the umpire and watched from close quarters as his charges participated in the four-hour exercise that lasted until 2:00pm. Unlike the routine nets, the batsmen occupied the crease in pairs and, akin to an actual game of cricket, competed fiercely to excel in the field.
Likewise, the bowlers too competed as they would normally do in a match and bowled in tandem while the fielders supported the bowlers by attacking the ball in the outfield to prevent extra runs being taken and dived around to stop the boundaries.
Misbah-ul-Haq, the Pakistan vice-captain, was on hand to speak about the importance of Friday’s unusual practice schedule and described the regimen as extremely helpful from the players’ point of view.
“The reason we opted to adopt the match-like situation [during training] today because our top-order batting had struggled for runs in all games we have played in the World Cup.
“The team management realised it wouldn’t be a bad idea to allow the openers face the new ball as do in the pro-per matches,” Misbah explained.
“I thought the session went very nicely as the guys got the chance to bat for longer time. This was important since we had a long gap [of five day] between the New Zealand and Zimbabwe matches.”
Misbah admitted some of the reasons for Tuesday’s loss to New Zealand were due to Pakistan batting second for the first time in the tournament as well as the poor start against the new ball.
“I think when you are chasing big runs [target of 303] it’s always tough and on the top of that Pakistan had to bat for the first time under lights here which was never going to be easy as the ball swung and seamed quite prodigiously in the first 10 to 15 overs,” he said.
“Moreover, to our bad luck, New Zealand bowlers [Tim Southee and Kyle Mills] took early wickets to put us under pressure. When you lose too many wickets it is always difficult for the remaining batsmen to get going something we never did. If we had survived those early overs, the conditions would have been easier for batting with the dew factor coming into play.”
Misbah conceded that Pakistan did control the New Zealand innings for 44 overs, but if someone batted just as Ross Taylor did with that an unbeaten 131 then it was a case of exceptional batting.
“Of course, it was one of those days where someone plays a sensational knock and suddenly changes gears to take the game beyond your reach. I thought it was Ross Taylor’s day particularly the way he cashed in on the chances we missed.
He played a superb knock, the kind which doesn’t happens every day.”
