England’s Stuart Broad raring to go against Pakistan in warm-up
English all-rounder Stuart Broad has expressed eagerness for the pre-World Cup warm-up match against Pakistan later today (February 19).
England will play against Pakistan at the Khan Saheb Osman Ali Stadium in Fatullah, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747. This will be their second warm-up game; their first match was against a much weaker opposition, Canada. The match had turned out to be a closely-fought match
which England eventually won by 16 runs.
Pakistan and England have not faced each other since Pakistan’s tour of England back in 2010, which was tarnished by the infamous spot-fixing scandal. Stuart Broad was the mainstay for the English side that had defeated the visitors 3-2 but he had missed
the ODI series against Australia due to injury. Having regained his fitness, he is raring to go. Broad is fully focused on the second warm-up game and his five-wicket stint that rescued his team from an upset against Canada has done well to boost his confidence
ahead of the crucial match.
Relations between the two cricketing giants are still sore due to the spot-fixing scandal and the altercation between fast bowler http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Wahab-Riaz-c95839 and right-hand batsman Jonathan Trott before the final of the ODI series in England did not help much. Both the teams
are at the same hotel in Dhaka, but have not interacted with each other.
Broad told the press on Thursday, “We’ve not seen a huge amount of them in the hotel. We haven’t been going out for dinner with them. We enjoyed playing the cricket, but our wonderful summer of cricket was damaged. But you’ve got to move on. It’s international
sport and we’ve got a job to do.”
Broad acknowledged that http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Canada-c748 in the first warm-up match as their World Cup campaign will begin next week. He said his team needed to get back on winning terms and that they couldn’t afford to lose
the match against the Men in Green.
The 24-year-old cricketer said, “We’re pretty selfish in the fact we want to get ourselves right for this World Cup, and we’ll use every opportunity we have to do that. We need to get better as a team, both batting and bowling and tomorrow will be a great
opportunity to do that.”
Broad was part of the team that won the World Twenty20 in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760, which was their maiden world trophy under the leadership of Paul Collingwood. They will be looking to repeat a similar performance this time as well.
England will try to restore their confidence which was heavily dinted after 6-1 loss to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 3-2 in an
away series a month ago.
Key players:
Kevin Pietersen was promoted to open the innings for his side against Canada, with the subcontinent’s pitches favouring batsmen. He will be looking to build on this opportunity and score big. Broad will be hoping he repeats a similar performance against
Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Ahmed Shehzad and Misbah-ul-Haq are in great touch with the bat and the duo will be hoping to score big in this match. Abdur Razzaq’s bowling is improving by the day and he is becoming a major threat with the ball.
England squad: Andrew Strauss (captain), Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Matt Prior (wkt), Luke Wright, Michael Yardy, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ajmal-Shahzad-c42489, Ravi Bopara
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shoaib-Akhtar-c90080, Junaid Khan.
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