Pakistan needs to shake off the disappointment of its loss to archrival India and illness within its squad when it takes on five-time champion champion Australia at the Cricket World Cup on Friday.
Opening batter Abdullah Shafique and fast bowler Shaheen Afridi were among a group of players sick with a fever after the team left Ahmedabad following a seven-wicket loss to India.
Both Shafique and Afridi rejoined the team in practice at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Wednesday and are available for selection.
Also back in the selection frame are Fakhar Zaman, who has recovered from knee injury, and middle-order batter Saud Shakeel.
Pakistan made a solid start to the tournament with wins over Netherlands and Sri Lanka at Hyderabad, a venue where the team got a warm reception.
The crowd was behind Babar Azam-led side when Shafique and Mohammad Rizwan both scored centuries in Pakistan’s record run chase of 345-4.
But Pakistan — touring India for the first time in seven years — faced a vociferous partisan crowd of more than 100,000 India supporters at Ahmedabad as it slumped from 155-2 to be all out for 191.
“Win or lose is part of the game,” said Rizwan, who has scored 248 in three innings. “We have lost to India, but if you see we had also won two matches. We have to match our skills with our game awareness … we can’t say we are behind the world.”
Babar, the No. 1-ranked batter in ODI cricket, is yet to get his momentum in the tournament. But more than batting it’s the bowlers who haven’t yet got into any sort of rhythm against good batting sides.
Afridi has struggled to pick up early wickets, while Haris Rauf and Hasan Ali have performed in patches. spinners Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz struggled to give Pakistan breakthroughs in the middle overs.
But Rizwan backed his bowlers to come good.
“Everyone is saying we are unpredictable but I believe we have the world’s top bowlers,” Rizwan said. “Everyone is rightly thinking that our spinners are not picking up wickets, but if you look at their bowling they are doing good … Shadab and Nawaz can turn the match in our favor any time.”
The World Cup, which has not yet reached the halfway point, has already seen two big upsets – Netherlands beating high-flying South Africa and defending champion England getting knocked over by Afghanistan’s spinners.
“Every match is crucial,” Rizwan said. “We are also looking forward to the Australia challenge. We haven’t lost our spirits after one,” loss.
Australia recovered from its opening losses to India and South Africa to get its first points with a victory over Sri Lanka, moving off the bottom of the standings.
Pat Cummins’ squad failed to cross the 200-run mark in heavy losses to India and South Africa in which the Australian skipper managed to get just one wicket.
The big defeats led commentator and former test skipper Michael Clarke to predict on domestic radio that Cummins was set to sit on bench in game against Sri Lanka.
But the Australia captain responded by taking two vital wickets against Sri Lanka before Adam Zampa spun the team to a five-wicket win.
“We all back each other 100% in this team,” Zampa said after the Sri Lanka win. “I don’t really know what’s been said or what people are reading, but the only thing that I saw come on the WhatsApp group was same 11 as last game … there’s no pressure on Pat there.”
While Travis Head is still nursing a broken left hand, Mitchell Marsh regained some of his lost batting form with a half century against Sri Lanka.
Australia put on two flat performances – both with ball and bat – in the first two games, but hoped that another good performance against Pakistan could swing its momentum.
But to set Australia firmly back in contention, it needs the established top-order batters to get going with the likes of David Warner and Steven Smith taking more responsibility.
Warner has scores of 41, 13 and 11 in three games while Smith has scored 65 in three knocks that included a duck against Sri Lanka.
Warner was in the headlines when he questioned the Decision Review System (DRS) after he was adjudged lbw against Sri Lanka and umpire Joel Wilson’s out decision was upheld by ball tracking technology.
“I’ve never had Hawk-Eye come in and explain to us how the technology actually works, it’s just for the TV,” said Warner, who smashed his bat on his pad before walking back to the dressing room after Wilson’s decision.
“There’s just little things that as a player you get frustrated because there’s no explanation … but there has to be some accountability.”
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