Pakistan cricket team is having a torrid time in the ongoing Cricket World Cup in India. The Men in Green have lost four out of six games and are on the brink of early elimination from the global tournament.
Babar Azam’s men started their World Cup campaign with back-to-back wins over Netherlands and Sri Lanka but they failed to maintain consistency, losing to India, Australia, Afghanistan and South Africa in the next four matches to find themselves in the bottom half of the 10-team points table.
Pakistan’s next fixture is scheduled against Bangladesh at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Tuesday (October 31).
On the eve of the game, Pakistan head coach Grant Bradburn addressed a press conference, where he made a bizarre statement.
Bradburn said that Pakistani players have been unable to deal with the Indian conditions since majority of them are on their first ever tour of the country.
Only two players featuring in Pakistan’s World Cup squad have played in India before. While Mohammad Nawaz was part of the team’s 2016 T20 World Cup squad, Agha Salman once travelled to India for the now-defunct Champions League T20.
“This tournament is on foreign conditions for us. None of our players have played here before. Every venue is a new one, including this one,” Bradburn told reports.
“We’ve done our homework meticulously on our opposition, on our venues that we’re playing at, and we’re prepared very, very well for each and every encounter. But the reality is that each and every venue is a new one for us and we don’t feel disadvantaged at all in terms of the knowledge, the quality, the skill, the backing that we have for this team of cricketers,” he added.
Pakistan still have a mathematical chance to make it to the semi-finals, but their qualification will depend on the results of other teams.
“We are in a position that we didn’t want to be. We are determined at this stage of the tournament to be in control of our destiny but we’re not. That hurts the group,” Bradburn said.
Grant Bradburn was promoted to the head coach role in May this year after being associated with the Pakistan side as fielding coach and consultant previously.
“Ideally, preparation for a tournament like this starts four years ahead. We started six months ago and changed direction in the way that we want to play the game of cricket, especially the one-day brand,” Bradburn said.
“We’ve shown some positive signs of that over the last six months. We’re proud of some of the performances that we’ve put on. It’s taking a little bit longer than we hoped, but we want to play a dynamic brand that matches the challenge of the conditions we’re playing in,” he added.
Pakistan entered into the World Cup as the No.1 ranked ODI team but they have now slipped to the third spot.
Bradburn admitted that the rankings are ‘skewed’ since Pakistan don’t get to play India and other top cricket teams regularly.
“In terms of the ICC rankings, we know they are skewed because we don’t get to play India, we don’t get to play a lot of the top nations who haven’t been to Pakistan of late,” Bradburn said.
“But we’re realistic. We have not been the best in the world as yet, so which highlights where we are in this tournament right now. We have no divine right to beat anyone in this tournament,” he remarked.
(CricketNext Inputs)
