Pakistan start WC campaign today

ISLAMABAD: The much-anticipated moment for the Pakistan cricket fans has arrived as the Greenshirts will begin their ICC World Cup 2023 campaign against the Netherlands today (Friday) at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium.

Since arriving in the city eight days ago, which also marked the first instance of a Pakistan men’s side landing in India in seven years, Babar Azam’s side has made the most of the training sessions and two warm-up games to acclimatize to the conditions in the city where they play first two of their nine league matches.

The warm-up games against New Zealand and Australia also served opportunities to Pakistan to fine-tune their combinations and provide the much-needed match time to the entire squad.

“We have been in Hyderabad for a week and our preparations have been really good,” Babar told PCB Digital on the eve of Pakistan’s tournament opener.

“We have had two practice matches in which we tried different combinations and gave everyone an opportunity to see if they could play in any situation. Overall our practice went well and we will give our best.”

“Both bowling and batting are our strengths,” Babar replied when asked what he felt his side’s strengths are.

“Our batters have been performing from the top-order down to the lower-order. Every player is stepping up and taking responsibility. In bowling, our fast bowling has always been our strength but even our spinners are showing promise. Since we have come to India, we have seen our spinners take wickets in the middle overs, which is a good sign. We will try and keep this momentum going.”

“As far as my experience goes, and having watched matches in India on television, I’ll say the pitches seem really good. Matches are going to be high scoring. As for the boundaries, they are normal-sized, not too small but not too big either. The pitches are true -- sometimes you need a little more time (as a batter) early on (in the game), but once you play on it for a while it feels really good. There is not much margin for the bowlers as they have to keep their lines wicket-to-wicket and deploy variations. If they err in lines, then the batters are going to make the most of it.”

Speaking about his last four years, the Pakistan captain said: “My journey has been really good. There have been ups and downs, which is natural. There have been challenges at times, but I have tried to live up to the expectations of the fans. I have met a lot of good people in the process. I met some very good teammates and was able to forge a bond with them. It has been three years since I have been playing with these boys so we have bonded well in this time.”

TODAY’S FIXTURE

Pakistan vs Netherlands

1:30 pm PST