Stop being overawed by South Africa: Inzamam tells Pakistan

February 19, 2013

Inzamam

Karachi, Feb 19: Former captain Inzamam-ul-Haq feels Pakistan were psychologically under pressure against South Africa and advised the national team players to stop being overawed by the world's number one Test team.

"I firmly believe we were psychologically under pressure from South Africa since the start of the series. You look at the batting strike rate of our players and you can see they never tried to dominate the South African bowlers even after settling down which was the key to success in this series," Inzamam said yesterday from Lahore.

South Africa, the number one ranked team in Test cricket, took a winning 2-0 lead in the three-match Test series on Sunday after defeating Pakistan by four wickets in the second Test at Capetown.

Inzamam, who was due to be in South Africa with the team as batting consultant, said he would have advised the players to play positively against the South African bowlers.

"It is true that our pace attack was not of the same quality that we had when we won tests in South Africa in 1998 or 2007 but still our batsmen needed to show a more proactive approach," he said.

Inzamam, considered one of the batting greats in Pakistan cricket, said it was obvious on the field that Pakistani players were overawed by their opponents and under pressure because of their world number one status.

"We should have won the second Test. We had them on the mat in the first innings but a couple of bad decisions let them off the hook. Our batsmen than batted passively in the second innings when there was a need to play attacking cricket and put them under more pressure," Inzamam noted.

The former captain admitted that South Africa's bowling attack was one of the best in the world but not unplayable.

"Once Younis and Asad Shafiq scored centuries in the first innings I thought the remaining batsmen would take a lead from that," he added.

Pakistan lost the first Test in Johannesburg by 211 runs after crumbling to 49 all out in the first innings in the face of the hosts' hostile pace bowling attack.

Inzamam, who hit an unbeaten 92 in Pakistan's last Test win in South Africa in 2007, said that the scoring rate of the Pakistani batsmen was a big concern.

"On the third day last session our batsmen scored at just two runs per over when we should have been going after their bowling. You look at their batting they kept on scoring at around four per over all the time to put our bowling under pressure," he said.

Inzamam said he was always available to help the Pakistan team and if the board asked him again to work with the players he would definitely give it a thought.

"After the Indian tour I don't know but the board didn't talk to me about going to South Africa as batting consultant," he said.

Pakistan's former captain, Moin Khan said that the national team needed to play positive cricket not only on the field but in their minds.

"You can only beat a top side if you believe you can do it. I thought we had the second test in the bag but we didn't go for the kill when required," he said.

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News Network
July 21,2020

Melbourne, Jul 21: Cricket Australia's chief executive Nick Hockley has said that the Indian players and staff will most likely be asked to face two weeks of quarantine before the four-match Test series.

This scenario will bring the Adelaide Oval and its newly constructed hotel firmly into view as the sort of biosecure bubble, ESPNCricinfo reported.

India and Australia are slated to face each other in a four-match Test series, which is to begin from December 4 at Brisbane.

"The two-week quarantine is pretty well-defined. What we are working on is making sure that even within that quarantine environment, the players have got the absolute best training facilities, so that their preparation for the matches is as optimal as it can possibly be," ESPNCricinfo quoted Hockey as saying.

"Certainly the fact that the Adelaide Oval has a hotel. It does provide a facility not dissimilar to Old Trafford or Ageas Bowl where the hotels are integrated into the venue," he added.

Hockley also said that an exacting standard of biosecurity and testing would be applied before the series against India as the coronavirus cases are spiking in the subcontinent.

"It's widely known and it's unlikely that international travel restrictions would have lifted by the time that India will be due to come into the country. Clearly there will be testing regimes. We will be able to test people before that they get on to the plane and it is the nature of the situation of making sure we have the quarantine arrangements in line with government and health authority protocols," Hockley said.

"The key thing for the players is that there's regular testing and that we appropriately quarantine them when they come in and all of those plans are currently in development," he added.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday announced the postponement of the T20 World Cup 2020 slated to be held in Australia from October 18-November 15 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Following the announcement, the BCCI is likely to go ahead with the Indian Premier League (IPL) in the October-November window. However, it is known where the T20 tournament will be played as cases continue to rise in India.
"I think the BCCI has made no secrets that they are considering what that means for the IPL. For us, it's about getting a bit of an understanding and certainty around what that means. Clearly, in a normal course, some of our best players are obviously top picks for those IPL teams," Hockley said.

"It's a bit premature to speculate on that. We need to understand what the plans are if any and once we understand that we will make decisions accordingly," he added.

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News Network
April 2,2020

New Delhi, Apr 2: It was on April 2, 2011, when the Men in Blue went on to win their second 50-over World Cup title.

India won its first World Cup in 1983 and then had to wait for 28 years to again lift the title.
Going into the 2011 tournament, India went in as the clear favourites as the competition was to be played in the sub-continent.

Under MS Dhoni's leadership, India lost just one match in the competition against South Africa.
India had defeated arch-rivals Pakistan in the semi-final to set up a summit clash with Sri Lanka.

In the finals, Sri Lanka won the toss and opted to bat first. Mahela Jayawardene top-scored for Sri Lanka as he struck a century to take the team's score to 274/6.

India in their chase got off to a bad start as the side lost Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag with just 31 runs on the board.

But Gautam Gambhir and MS Dhoni stepped up and stitched a match-winning 109-run partnership.

Gambhir perished after playing a knock of 97 runs, but in the end, Dhoni and Yuvraj took the team over the line by six wickets.

The winning six struck by Dhoni is still viewed as one of the most exciting moments in India's sporting history. 

As the winning six was hit, Ravi Shastri was doing commentary then, and he famously remarked, "Dhoni, finishes it off in style, India lifts the World Cup after 28 years".
As soon as the match-winning shot was hit, Tendulkar erupted with joy and had tears to see his dream finally being fulfilled.

Earlier this year, former Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar's famous lap around the Wankhede Stadium after the 2011 World Cup win, titled 'Carried On the Shoulders Of A Nation', was voted the greatest Laureus Sporting Moment of the last twenty years.

The lap after the World Cup is still edged into everyone's hearts.

Playing in his last mega 50-over tournament, it was the last chance for Tendulkar to lift the coveted trophy.

Before the 2011 World Cup, Tendulkar had played five tournaments (1992,1996,1999,2003 and 2007), and he fell short every time.

The closest he came to winning the trophy was in 2003 as India made the finals under the leadership of Sourav Ganguly.

But the Men in Blue fell short in the finals against Australia.

Then in 2007, the biggest setback was in store for the legend has India bowed out of the tournament in the group stages.

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News Network
February 10,2020

Potchefstroom, Feb 10: India's under-19 cricket team manager Anil Patel says the ICC has taken a serious view of the aggressive celebrations by Bangladesh players after their World Cup triumph and will be reviewing the footage of the final game's "last few minutes".

Some Bangladeshi players got carried away while celebrating their historic three-wicket win over India in the final on Sunday. While their captain Akbar Ali apologised for the "unfortunate incident", his Indian counterpart Priyam Garg said their reaction was "dirty".

"We don't know what actually happened," Patel told 'ESPNCricinfo' on Sunday.

"Everybody was in a shock, absolutely, but we don't know what happened exactly. The ICC officials are going to watch the footage of the last few minutes and they are going to let us know," he said.

Even when the match was on, the Bangladesh players were overly aggressive while fielding and their lead pacer Shoriful Islam sledged the Indian batsmen after every delivery.

As soon as the match ended, it became tense with Bangladeshi players rushing to the ground and displaying aggressive body language. The two teams nearly came to blows before the situation was defused by the coaching staff and on-field officials.

Patel claimed that match referee Graeme Labrooy met him and expressed regret at what transpired on the field.

"The referee came to me. He was sorry about the incident. He clarified the ICC is going to take very seriously what has happened during the match and the last session. They are going to witness the footage and they will tell us in the morning (Monday)."

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