Afridi says morale of Pakistanis is high

Dashing batsman and the third highest wicket taker in international Twenty20 cricket, Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi said that the series win against Australia boosted their morale ahead of the World T20 tournament which starts next Tuesday in Hambantota.

“If you played a game against a world class team and we won the series. The morale is very high now. We have two warm up games ahead of the tournament and we will try to adjust ourselves to these conditions” said the former Pakistani skipper.

Pakistan is a team that has shown some outstanding colours throughout the years. They were the World T20 runner up in 2007 and went on to win the championship in the next edition of the tournament.

Asked what he thinks about that, Afridi said that it was a great occasion for them. “I still remember the semi-final and the final. I was the man of the match in both big games.”

Playing in the top level in T20 cricket, Pakistanis are T20 experts. “If we look at our team members, they like playing positive and they are also aggressive.

They like playing lots of cricket and we started playing this kind of cricket about 20- 25 years ago in the club level. So we know how to play this game” Afridi said.

Pakistan open their Group D campaign on Sept. 23, when they meet New Zealand at Pallekele. The third team in their group is Bangladesh.

The 32-year-old cricketer is one of the world’s most experienced players at the moment, having played 349 ODIs, 27 Tests and 50 T20 Internationals. Having grabbed 58 wickets, Afridi is the third-highest wicket-taker in the game’s shortest format, behind his teammates, Saeed Ajmal and Umar Gul.

Meanwhile experienced Pakistani campaigner Abdur Razzak said that their experience at the recently concluded Sri Lanka Premier league was a good one. “It was a good experience. Cricket was played at a very high standard” he added.

Razzak said that they are ready for the warm up matches against India and England, after successfully taking on Australia in a three-match T20 series few days ago.

“Everybody is confident and our team is geared up. We have only two warm up games, against India and England. So hopefully we would do well and ready to for the T20 World Cup.

Source: Daily News (Sri Lanka)