There was a big smile on his face when Shahid Afridi walked into the press conference room after putting up a Houdini act that saved Pakistan against minnows Canada here on Thursday.If the Pakistan captain was unhappy with his batters’ poor display in the match then he was doing a good job hiding it.
But as the presser progressed, it became evident that Afridi would give his players a dressing down when they reached their hotel after putting in an awful performance with the bat against the lowly-rated Canadians.
It’s a wake-up call for us,” said the seasoned allrounder after Pakistan were bowled out for 184 by Canada, easily one of the weakest teams at World Cup 2011. It was his 5-23 that guided Pakistan to a 46-run win in the end.“I know what would have happened had we lost today,” he said well aware that allegations of match-fixing would have certainly been hurled at them in case of an upset defeat against the Canadians.
Afridi rejected the impressions that Pakistan faltered
because the conditions
were overcast, the pitch
was difficult or that the Canadians bowled really well. “I believe that it was just a poor batting performance,” said Afridi.
“It was a sluggish wicket and there was a cloud cover but had our batsmen taken their time on the crease we would have put a much bigger score on the board,” he stressed.Afridi urged his players to learn from their mistakes and bring in an improvement in their performance ahead of the March 8 match against New Zealand at Pallekele.
Afridi rued the fact that he and fellow batters Umar Akmal and Abdul Razzaq squandered a golden opportunity to get some good batting ‘practice’ after prolific middle-order batters — Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq — failed to post big totals unlike Pakistan’s previous two World Cup games when they anchored the innings.
“It was a great opportunity for me, Umar Akmal and Razzaq to play some big knocks and get some good practice but we’ve wasted it,” he said.
Afridi revealed that Pakistan’s shock defeat against minnows Ireland in the 2007 World Cup was very much on his mind when his team failed to put up a reasonable score on the board.
“The defeat against Ireland was on my mind. But back in the dressing room I told my boys that we will win this game no matter what. I told them not to be negative,” he said.Afridi said that he had set a simple goal for himself as Pakistan took the field to defend 184.
“I just kept bowling wicket to wicket. Sometimes I got a bit of turn and sometimes the ball skidded giving me good chances of lbws,” he said.
Afridi said that he told his bowlers to go for maiden overs. “If you bowl tight with some maiden overs wickets are bound to fall.”
Ashish Bagai, Afridi’s Canadian counterpart, said that his team was disappointed at losing the match after producing a stellar performance with the ball. “Our bowlers did a fantastic job but the batting wasn’t up to the mark once again,” said Bagai.Bagai said that his game plan was to hit Afridi for 30-35 runs from his ten overs but it didn’t work.
“Our plan was to milk Afridi for 30, 35 runs but once he starts taking wickets then he just gets going with so much variations,” said Bagai.
