Free your mind and bat will follow, says Afridi

Pakistan’s “clueless” batsmen will be chasing redemption today according to the team’s former captain Shahid Afridi.

A rudderless display consigned Pakistan to a 124run defeat in their opening game against India on Sunday and leaves them bottom of Group B.

They are likely to need to beat South Africa, who overcame Sri Lanka in their first match, to have any chance of progressing to the semi-finals.

But to see off the world’s No 1 ranked one-day side, Pakistan will have to deliver a much-improved performance, starting with a batting line-up that was bowled out by India for 164.

Afridi, who scored 8,064 runsin398one-daymatches for Pakistan, believes his team can bounce back.

“I think we can post a score of around 300, only if we apply ourselves properly with the bat and build a solid foundation,” Afridi told the ICC’S website.

“We should retain the batting line-up that played against India since our bench strength isn’t that great either.

“The players backed in the opening game must be given at least one more chance at redemption since, in a world event like the ICC Champions Trophy, major changes rarely work.

“Pakistan batsmen need to free their minds and play with a positive mindset,” Afridi said.

“The Pakistan batsmen seemed to have simply frozen against India and looked clueless in the face of mounting run-rate.”

South Africa laid down a marker with a 96-run thrashing of Sri Lanka on Saturday and captain AB de Villiers insists that his side are not feeling any pressure.

“No pressure. The last time we played them in Champions Trophy, we got the better of them at the same ground,” De Villiers said. “So we are confident going into this game, without being arrogant or overconfident. We played really good, won our first game in the tournament.”