Pakistan bowling coach in his blog for a popular Pakistani cricket website wrote that there was no better feeling than knowing that they have won the ICC Champions Trophy.
“One can only praise the Almighty for His reward for our hard work before and during this tournament not only in our bowling but in the overall sense,” he wrote.
As a coach, he wrote, involved with the winning side, this is the best feeling one can have, but it gets better if “we consider the fact that we won the final against our arch-rival India and lifted the Champions Trophy.”
“We did so, at a time when no one gave us any chance of success. No one gave us any credit for the hard-work we put in as we prepared for this tournament and we were written-off after our defeat to India in the tournament opener,” he wrote.
He added that the improvement in all departments was phenomenal and whether it was batting, bowling or fielding the team seemed to click at the right time to win the trophy.
“It was a team effort at the Champions Trophy and especially pleasing if we consider the fact that this is a young team which helped us win,” he wrote, adding, “The lads represent the future for Pakistan but it was also great to see the seniors responding well. So, players like Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez responded really well to our objective of playing the brand of cricket which we now want to play.”
About Hasan Ali, he wrote, “He is a match-winner and our go-to man at the moment. What I really love about Hasan is his attitude. He not only wants to do well for himself but he genuinely wants to do anything to help out his team as well. As a coach and a team-mate, that’s all you want from a young bowler.”
Apart from working on bowling skills, Azhar mentions that his association with Pakistan’s bowlers lead to changing their mindset.
CONSISTENCY IN SELECTION IS A MUST
The problem a lot of the time is the media who go into a frenzy when a bowler has a bad game which is not good, he wrote. “We need to back our guys and give the players a proper chance. And this not just true for Junaid but for any youngster; all of the deserving players need to be given ample chances to perform because that is how they become better and stronger players,” he mentioned.
THE RETURN OF MOHAMMAD AMIR
There is no doubt in my mind that Mohammad Amir is a big-match player. During the Champions Trophy, there was hardly any swing due to the cold weather at Cardiff and Edgbaston but Amir swung the ball at Cardiff and also at The Oval. I felt Amir seemed to be holding himself back so that he was only putting in 70% effort at times. I mentioned this to Amir before the final against India that he must go flat out and bowl the fastest he can. And we saw in that game in the way he was running in, in his body language that he was fired up and went in full throttle at the Indian batsmen. His spell, as we all saw, could only be described as a match-winning spell. He took wickets with the new ball and set the tone for the rest of the innings for all of the other to follow. Fakhar Zaman did that for us with the bat and Amir followed with the ball.
SHADAB KHAN:
Describing Shadab Khan, he wrote that watching this 18-year-old play as if he was playing a street game with his friends and not the most important game of the tournament is how in Azhar’s view, the game should be played. “Shadab Khan is able to do all that because he has confidence in his abilities. When you enjoy your cricket then you will put in performances like the way he bowled to Yuvraj Singh at The Oval. He was bowling as if he didn’t care who the batsman was in the same way we always teach the batsmen to play the ball and not worry about who is bowling it,” Azhar wrote.
Azhar thinks Pakistan team is lucky in the sense that they have some players like Shadab Khan, Hasan Ali and Fakhar Zaman. “Each of them has talent but above all, they have a big heart. That is what the team needs and you would have seen the effect of that in the boost in morale and the lift the team got during the tournament. This is a great sign for Pakistan cricket and I am really pleased and happy about that as that is taking Pakistan cricket in the right direction. It is all because of these youngsters,” he wrote about the youngsters.
He also wrote that he doesn’t get bothered by criticism directed at him.
