MANCHESTER: Former captain and ultimate \u2018Swing ka Sultan\u2019 Wasim Akram hailed Pakistan\u2019s remarkable win in one-off T20I against England at Old Trafford on Thursday as a \u201cgood omen\u201d for Pakistan cricket.
\nTalking exclusively to Geo News at Old Trafford stadium after Pakistan\u2019s nine-wicket win, the former captain said that it was good to see Pakistan showcasing perfection in all departments of the game.
\n\u201cPakistan outclassed England in all departments of the game, it was great to see them playing with proper plan and the energy they exhibited in the field was outstanding which helped them throughout the match,\u201d Wasim said.
\n\u201cEngland have a very good sign with Adil Rashid who has 10 FC centuries to his credit coming at number 11, and to restrict such team to small total as 135 was actually good work done by Pakistani bowlers,\u201d he said.
\nWasim said that the way Pakistan fought back after struggling in four ODIs was remarkable and the performances made him excited in the commentary box. The former captain added that the coach and captain deserve credit for motivating players after a not-so-good start of the limited-overs leg of the tour.
\n\u201cI was equally excited as anyone else was, I was disappointed by ODI loss, but this one excited me. It was good to see Pakistan playing good in all departments, a good sign,\u201d he said.
\nThe \u2018Swing ka Sultan\u2019 expressed satisfaction with Pakistan\u2019s progress, saying that the way Pakistan played the T20I at Manchester showed that the team is adopting the requirements of modern cricket.
\n\u201cPakistan played fearless cricket and showed what they\u2019re capable of,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWe must allow players to express themselves freely, without any fear of being dropped after couple of innings,\u201d he added.
\nWasim further agreed with the observation that Pakistan is gradually coming back on the track, but insisted that the selection committee should work on back up players as well if they want to remain on track with consistency.
\n\u201cIt is now up to Inzamam and his team to work on finding back up. For Sarfraz we have Rizwan, similarly we need backups for the likes of Sharjeel, Imad, Amir, Wahab in case of any injury to these players,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWe need to organize A team\u2019s tours to countries like Australia, New Zealand and South Africa where youngsters would learn to play in difficult conditions, A team\u2019s tour to Zimbabwe will not help Pakistan\u2019s cause to prepare the back up,\u201d Wasim added.
\nThe former captain praised Sarfraz for the controlled captaincy in his first match as Pakistan\u2019s T20I captain, but said that it is not the right time to remove Azhar Ali from ODI captaincy.
\n\u201cSarfraz showed quality of a good captain, he was calm and remained in control. He never seemed to panic. He made bowling changes very well.\u201d
\n\u201cBut I don\u2019t think that Azhar should be removed and it is too early for Sarfraz to replace him, let Sarfraz and Azhar continue with what they\u2019re doing. Judge them after the West Indies series,\u201d he said.
\nSumming up the England tour, Wasim said that overall it was a successful tour by Pakistan and the team had been outstanding on and off the field and deserved to be congratulated for this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANCHESTER: Former captain and ultimate \u2018Swing ka Sultan\u2019 Wasim Akram hailed Pakistan\u2019s remarkable win in one-off T20I against England at Old Trafford on Thursday as a \u201cgood omen\u201d for Pakistan cricket. Talking exclusively to Geo News at Old Trafford stadium after Pakistan\u2019s nine-wicket win, the former captain said that it was good to see Pakistan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":942,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n