Sport

Series with Australia to provide perfect fillip for Pakistan

Younus Khan, the Pakistan captain, is putting on a brave face for the cameras ahead of his side's opening clash with Australia in six days time.

Ahmed Rizvi

April 16, 2009

  • English
  • Arabic

DUBAI // Younus Khan, the Pakistan captain, is putting on a brave face for the cameras ahead of his side's opening clash with Australia in six days time. Pakistan became a nation in crisis and a cricket team without a home when terrorists opened fire on a bus carrying the Sri Lanka team in Lahore in March, a incident that rendered the country a no-go zone for international cricket and one that put Pakistan's cricket future in jeopardy.

With all Pakistan's home matches now either abandoned or, like this UAE series, held at a neutral venue, the future of Younus' team is in dire straits and they are chronically short of international-standard match practice. "I have no expectations from my team because I don't want to put extra pressure on them," said Younus, who scored a triple hundred against Sri Lanka in the ill-fated series in Pakistan.

"Captains have made comments about individual players or team expectations in the past and suddenly you are under more pressure. That is not what I want for this series." Pakistan flew into Abu Dhabi on Monday morning, and travelled directly to Dubai, giving themselves five days to train on Dubai Sports City's newly-laid wicket before their rivals arrive from South Africa on Saturday. Australia have played more days of international cricket since the start of this year than Pakistan have in the last 16 months.

Ricky Ponting's side have been on the field for 39 days this year and are currently embroiled in a hard-fought series against the Proteas, where they won the three-Test series 2-1, lost both the Twenty20 internationals and trail the five-match one-day series 3-1. Pakistan, on the other hand, have played just three one-dayers this year and may be a bit under-cooked for the five one-day internationals and a Twenty20 match they will play here for the Chapal Cup.

Younus, however, insists the lack of cricket could actually work in Pakistan's favour. "Sometimes, it could be difficult if you have not played international cricket and you have to suddenly face Australia," he said. "But there are two sides to every story. If you want to look at the positive, you could say that Pakistan have not played much international cricket so they are not tired; they will be fresh when they take on Australia.

"Australia have just lost the one-day series in South Africa. They have played back-to-back matches, so don't you think they will be a bit tired when they come here? "So, personally I will look at the positives. I will tell my team that we have not played international cricket for some time and if we can put our pent up energies to use, we can surely beat Australia. "As an international cricketer, we should be able to deal with this. After losing a series, I should not be complaining that, 'oh we did not play enough international cricket'.

"You should be able to play and perform under any condition or circumstances. It is all about commitment and your mental status. If you are strong in the mind, you can perform in every situation." sports@thenational.ae

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Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer

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