Waqar plays down http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Auckland-c766 loss
The coach of Pakistani team Waqar Younis has played down his team’s loss to Auckland in the opening match of their two months long tour of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754.
The Pakistani team were brought down to earth by a team consisting of the best of Auckland’s talent, while most of their players had limited experience of international cricket with some new comers also in the midst.
The familiar problems with the men in green’s brittle batting caused failiure at the match played at the Colin Maiden Park in what was their only Twenty20 warm-up match of the tour.
The hosts than cantered home with victory, reaching the target with more than six overs remaining.
Waqar who tormented the Kiwis on Pakistan’s tours there in 1992-93 and 1994-95 with his searing pace and swing believes that the result against the Auckland team is not going to have much effect on the results of the international series
that kicks off with the opening T20 at the Eden Park on the Boxing Day.
"It wasn't the ideal start but that happens sometimes when you've just arrived in the country and you don't really know much about the pitch conditions," Waqar said. "I'm not really worried about it."
Pakistan's batting has been woeful at times especially in the last one year or so. They have also lost their last four international T20’s, a run that started against England.
In all these games they have batted first and failed to make an impact with the bat scoring less than 150 runs each time.
In the two games against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 in Abu Dhabi at the end of October they failed to reach even 130.
The same was the case at the Colin Maiden Park as the fragility in the batting ranks cost them their game against a buoyant Auckland team.
Waqar however claimed that the loss in not going to dampen the spirits in the camp rather it would act as a wake-up call when the team comes out to play the first T20 match at Auckland.
"The batting had been undergoing a good deal of work but the batsmen failed to click in the game and no-one had taken responsibility to anchor the effort."
"I think they've learned the lesson and hopefully in the next game it will be a different ball game," Waqar said. "We have done badly today, and we have spoken about it. We have to work hard over the next couple of days so we don't repeat
this type of performance."
The Pakistanis did bowl well in the practice game taking 5 wickets off the Auckland team despite posting a meagre score of 91 runs batting first. Shoaib Akhtar who is going to be critical to their chances in the limited overs formats on
the tour bowled with real pace taking two wickets at the top of the Auckland innings.
On the batting front captain http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-c89347 Afridi’s experiment of opening the innings backfired as he was sent packing for 1 by Auckland’s opening bowler Michael Bates, the pacer had a match to remember as he took 4 wickets reducing the tourists
to 7/3 at one stage of the innings.
Umar Akmal and Umar Gul were the top two scores for the tourists scoring 25 and 19 runs respectively, Akmal who is set to keep wickets in the limited over formats struck 2 fours in his innings.
For Auckland Roonel Hira claimed two wickets to help Bates in the cleaning up job.
After the three match T20 series the Pakistanis would play two tests and six ODIs against the hosts in their build up for the World Cup next year.
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