Sarfraz: Body language key to Pakistan T20 success
WEST INDIES COACH SAYS THEY FAILED TO DELIVER AFTER 2-0 SERIES LOSS
akistan, who stamped their supremacy over World Twenty20 Champions West Indies through two back-to-back victories in the three-match Twenty20 series at the Dubai International stadium, said they are in the process of developing a new body language.
After trouncing West Indies by nine wickets in the first match of the series on Friday, they won the second match by 16 runs on Saturday. A delighted Pakistan skipper Sarfraz Ahmad after the victory said: “We are trying to develop a new team, We have a young set of players so we are trying to develop a new body language.”
Sarfraz knows that confidence to perform plays a vital role, especially in Twenty20 cricket. “Body language is very important in T20 games. If your body language is not important for you, then you will not win games against any big team. So that’s why we are trying to develop body language as being very important.”
When Gulf News asked him if he expected such an easy win over the world champions, Sarfraz candidly said: “We didn’t expect to win the series twonil, all credit goes to the boys. If you look at the way we played, [opener] Khalid Latif got the innings off to a good start, and he stayed to the end. We are trying to develop this in the team, and encourage players who give a good start to continue till the end.”
Sarfraz was also delighted with contributions of seniors in the team, especially former captain Shoaib Malek. “A lot of credit goes to Shoaib Malek, the way he played with me till the end. We needed a senior player to stay at the wicket and he did that for us.”
Sarfraz led from the front with an unbeaten 46 to bag the man of the match award, but thanked his teammates who contributed immensely. “Just like Latif started, Shoaib kept the innings steady and then I finished things in the end. Similarly in the bowling department, Sohail Tanvir bowled well, and he was well supported by Imad Wasim and even Hasan Ali, the young bowler who managed well despite tough conditions, even Wahab Riaz bowled well,” said Sarfraz.
Star batsman
When asked why star batsman Umar Akmal was not promoted up the batting order, Sarfraz said: “It was our strategy to play Akmal at No. 6, since we needed a finisher in the lower order. We scored about 50 runs in the last five overs and we felt that was enough as we had set a target of a 150-plus score.”
Assistant coach Toby Radford who was representing West Indies in the absence of their head coach, said: “Whenever you come away from home, whenever you go to another country, the way the pitch plays, the boundary size, everything you come up against is slightly different to what you are used to back at home, and it is up to us as a team to try and combat A. Fletcher b Ali M. Samuels c Ahmed b Tanvir D. Bravo b Nawaz K. Pollard c Ahmed b Ali C. Brathwaite c Umar b Ali N. Pooran c Nawaz b Tanvir S. Narine c Umar b Riaz J. Taylor not out (nb6, w7) (for nine wkts, 20 overs) S. Badree 1-12 (Charles), 2-15 (Lewis), 3-19 (Samuels), 4-45 (Bravo), 5-82 (Fletcher), 6-83 (Pollard), 7-89 (Pooran), 8-119 (Brathwaite), 9-144 (Narine) Wasim 4-0-18-1, Tanvir 4-0-13-3 (1w), Nawaz 3-0-19-1, Malik 1-0-3-0, Ali 4-0-49-3 (2w), Riaz 4-0-42-1 (2nb, 4w) Pakistan won by 16 runs Shozab Raza (PAK) and Ahmed Shahab (PAK) Ahsan Raza (PAK) Andy Pycroft (ZIM) 29 1 18 18 8 4 30 10 13 144 that, but today we came up short.
“There has certainly been plenty of effort put into training, plenty of talks, plenty of preparation, but we just didn’t deliver today.”