Pakistan cricket team’s four month long journey away from home comes to an end, finally
The Pakistani cricket team has arrived back in
Pakistan after a four month long tour of Sri Lanka and
England. This tour will be remembered for a long time for many reasons, both good and bad. The team arrived at
Lahore except for four players including the captain Shahid Afridi who arrived in
Karachi. In his statement upon arrival, the captain said that the tour had been the most difficult of his career.
The tour began with Pakistan playing the Asia Cup in
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758. From there the Pakistani team headed to
England, where they played a T20 series against Australia as well as a test series. This was followed by a controversial test, T20 and ODI series against
England.
Speaking to journalists upon arriving back, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482 stated that the controversies that surrounded the tour made it very difficult for players to focus on the games themselves, and all the attention was widely unnecessary.
Despite that, Afridi said that he was proud of the team for still battling those pressures and giving good performances especially in the two ODIs that the team won.
Waqar Younis, coach of the Pakistani team, said that the tour had taken a toll on the team’s support staff as well because of the effort needed to keep the players upbeat amid the barrage of allegations. He added that four
months away from home had an adverse effect on every player and staff member, and even though success against
Australia helped mitigate some of that, it wasn’t enough.
In England,
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 played two T20s against Australia which
Pakistan won 2-0. After that, Pakistan played two test matches against
Australia, in which Australia won the first match and second was won by
Pakistan. This was Pakistan’s first test win against
Australia after 15 years. In both the T20s and the test matches,
Pakistan was effectively the home side.
After http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746,
Pakistan played a four match test series against
England. England won this test series by 3-1. Two T20s were then played between the two countries which were also won by
England. In the last stage of this long tour, Pakistan played a five match one day series against
England. This ODI series was an exciting one as
Pakistan fought back from 2-0 to 2-2, but then meekly lost the decider.
The next assignment for the Pakistani team is a home series against the South Africans in UAE. This includes two tests, two T20s and five ODIs. This series kicks off in October. Perhaps more importantly
however, Pakistani fans’ eyes will be glued to their television screens in the hope of catching any news about the fates of Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt – the trio that was alleged to have participated in spot fixing scandals in the recent
tour of England. These three players are vital cogs of the Pakistani team, and a resolution of this issue would help
Pakistan determine which side to take to the 2011 World Cup which is getting increasingly closer.
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