Pakistan face Kenya in their first clash of ICC World Cup 2011
Pakistan will be playing their first game of the ICC World Cup 2011 today. Their match is scheduled against the minnow African team http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758. The track is expected to suit Pakistan’s style.
Pakistan won their first warm-up game against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/England-c749 in the second warm-up game. The team is well balanced, with a nice blend of youth and experience. The team is considered one of the most formidable sides of the World Cup. The
Men in Green have a strong middle and lower batting orders. Previously, they have had problems with their openers, but with the inclusion of the in-form Ahmed Shehzad, Pakistan have overcome that problem.
The balance in the side gives them flexibility to promote and demote the players according to the situation. Speaking on this matter, Skipper http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482 said, “It will depend on how many overs we have so, Umar [Akmal] can come after Younis. We don’t want
Misbah and Younis batting together so that we can keep momentum and the scoreboard ticking.”
In their bowling line-up, Pakistan’s pace bowlers are backed up by quality spinners. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Umar-Gul-c2722. The conditions will suit his kind of bowling and once the ball gets old and starts to reverse, he will be a lethal unit.
It is expected that only one specialist spinner will be included in today’s squad. The spinner along with Shahid Afridi and Mohammad Hafeez will try to strangle the opposition. Pakistan have included two specialist spinners in their squad and the captain will
have a choice between http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Saeed-Ajmal-c2404 and Abdur Rehman.
Abdur Rehman is a slow left-arm orthodox spinner with a decent economy. He is also good with the bat, and his inclusion gives the left-hand batting option. On the other Saeed Ajmal is a right-arm offbreak bowler, quite efficient with his ‘doosra’. Unlike
Abdur Rehman, Ajmal is a wicket-taking option and is likely to be part of the playing eleven.
The Kenyan team was thrashed in the first game against New Zealand. The African team failed to adjust to the Asian conditions and flopped in all the departments of the game. They will be hoping to put a better show and resilient performance against Pakistan.
Kenyan batsman Steve Tikolo is positive about the revival of his team, saying that the team is raring to bounce back. He said his team was packed with some experienced and talented young players. He believed the exuberance of youth in his team will help them
bounce back.
Veteran Tikolo is playing his fifth World Cup and believes that Kenya have all the potential to pull out an upset. The Kenyan will be relying on their in-form opening batsman http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Seren-Waters-c89209. Unlike his other team members, Waters is white and is a technically-correct
opening batsman. He has all the abilities to blend power hits and sensible, resilient batting.
Pakistan recently thrashed http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 in a One Day International (ODI) series, but the conditions in Sri Lanka are entirely different. The slow Asian track is expected to produce high-scoring games and the track might assist spinners. Any team winning the
toss will like to bat first and accumulate heaps of runs.
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