LAHORE – Former Test cricketer Mudassar Nazar has expressed shock at the poor planning by the Pakistan Cricket Board for the World Cup. He said the team was not equipped for the World Cup and said he was astonished how far Pakistan was lagging in preparations.
“It usually takes a team 3-4 years to prepare for the World Cup – the preparation starts when one World Cup ends! This World Cup is around the corner; all of the teams are in tip-top condition. All the other teams are in good nick while Pakistan doesn’t even have a captain. That is ridiculous! The captain has to be in place for strategies to be worked out and plans to be made – on top of that we have three of our top players missing. One wonders as to how many knocks Pakistan can take,” he added.
“I would have gone with Shahid Afridi. He has been the captain for the past year or so. Now, the tournament is around the corner for which he has been preparing for a while and all of a sudden they’re not sure whose going to be the captain. It’s not like Pakistan has twenty match-winners on the team or have Mike Brearley waiting to be captain,” Pakpassion quoted him as saying. Mudassar said: “Pakistan are not likely to win the World Cup with this squad.
They are playing one of the worst sides in ODI cricket, New Zealand and they aren’t exactly beating them 6-0 are they? The only thing is the World Cup is in the sub continent which allows Pakistani batting a better chance at not getting exposed. Once they put up the total, they still have some decent bowlers to help then defend it.” Referring to Mohammad Yousuf’s exclusion from the World Cup squad, Mudasser felt that that he understood the reason behind the selector’s decision and also gave his verdict on who could make way for Yousuf’s inclusion in the team.
“Both Misbahul Haq and Mohammad Yousuf usually bat in a sedate manner. Yes, if the team was playing in England there would have been a need for stability in the middle order as our openers would be gone very quickly. However, the World Cup is being played in the subcontinent and you really cannot have two such batsmen scoring at 4 an over. On top of that, both aren’t the fastest runners in the game – selecting both would be unnecessary. Now, if you were to select from both of them I would be taking Yousuf not Misbah, simply due to the fact that Yousuf is a better batsmen,” he added.
