Confident Pakistan will do well: Alam

Pakistani cricket coach, Intikhab Alam has said that he is very confident about Pakistan’s chances at the ICC World T20 despite the unpredictable nature of the game. He said that his team is well prepared after the three practice games back home that followed the RBS Twenty20 Cup.

Alam said, “No one can make any predictions about Twenty20 matches but I am backing my team to do very well because the preparations have been top-class.” > He also said he was extremely happy with the interaction that the players had with the sports psychologist, Maqbool Babri in the early portion of the month. Alam said that the best thing to have come out of the meeting was the psychologist’s stress on the sport being a team game and the fact that the players need to plays as a single unit rather than a team.

Alam said that had Shoaib Akhtar played, he could have been a huge asset to the team because of his experience, more so in the English conditions. Akhtar had been declared unfit as he suffered from genital warts and was pulled out of the tournament.

On the other hand, Alam was happy with Misbah-ul-Haq’s return to the squad after suffering from a groin niggle which was diagnosed as a very minor one. It must be remembered that Misbah had shot to fame in the previous edition of the World T20 after guiding his team to the finals, and almost winning it single-handedly against India before losing by a small margin.

Pakistan will face England and Netherlands in their group and are expected to get to the Super Eights without any concerns. They play their first warm-up game on the 1st of June against South Africa while they take on defending champions on the 3rd of June.