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ISLAMABAD, Feb 13 (APP):Former Skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed believes Pakistan has a really good chance of defending the Champions Trophy title as the green-shirts have a strong team.
“Pakistan have a really good chance of defending that title and I think they have a strong team. Some of the boys from 2017 are still there and we’re talking about some of the best – especially Babar Azam.
He is a different Babar to the one that played in 2017, a more mature player and a dominant player in the game. His batting will be so important for Pakistan and so will Fakhar Zaman’s,” he said as quoted by ICC.
Ahmed said Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf are brilliant bowlers and are playing well. The captain, Mohammad Rizwan, is also a wicketkeeper-batter, which worked pretty well for me back in 2017. There will be pressure. Pakistan being at home, being the defending champions, there will be high expectations, but the fans will get behind them.
If I had to pick four semi-finalists, I’d probably go for Pakistan, India, Australia and Afghanistan at this stage, but I would not rule anyone out, he said.
He said when Pakistan will play New Zealand in Karachi next week, it will mark the first senior ICC event held in our homeland since 1996 and to say we are bursting with excitement would be an understatement.
Ahmed said of the pool matches, everyone will be talking about Pakistan’s match against India, and the game will be huge.
Whenever we meet, it is a special occasion and there is so much hype and pressure around it. But as players, you need to stay calm, try and block that noise out and just play with the same intensity as you would play Australia or any other team, he said.
He said in 2017, we played India in our first match and were soundly beaten by 124 runs. It was my first game as captain and we were poor in all areas. Afterwards, we had a great team meeting, and some of our senior guys – Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Hafeez – all said their piece. You need those types of characters around you.
Our head coach, Mickey Arthur, and I were so confident we would do well. We had come through a really tricky series against the West Indies, which was key for 2019 World Cup qualification, and were the bottom-ranked side in the tournament. We felt we had nothing to lose and so took as much pressure as we could away from the players, he said.