Sarfraz Ahmed feels that Pakistan is going in the right way ahead of the World Cup 2019

The World Cup 2019 is fast approaching. Although from the offset, it might seem as if there is a lot of time left, that isn’t to be the case. All the teams have already begun their preparations for this prestigious event. The teams are quite busy finding the right combinations and the best XI for the mega event.

Just like all other teams, the Pakistan team also seems to have begun its preparation. Skipper Sarfraz Ahmed seemed to be very positive about the team’s performance in the event. He gave his insights about the team combinations that we are likely to witness in this tournament and shared a lot of other information ahead of the T20I tri-series involving Australia and hosts Zimbabwe.

“We are basically trying to build ahead of the World Cup”

Firstly, Sarfraz Ahmed cleared the air about his batting position. He made it very clear that he was keen to bat at the No 4 position for the team. “I have been continuously batting at No. 4 [recently] and I would like to continue there,” the Pakistani skipper said.

“We are basically trying to build ahead of the World Cup. If you look at the ODI side, we haven’t made many changes. Fakhar Zaman, Shadab, Haris [Sohail] who is back in the side, Babar Azam at the top, Hafeez and Malik are around. So we are settling and it is good that the team is performing and we are going in right direction with the right combination,” Sarfraz noted about the World Cup preparation and other combinations. It was actually Pakistan Head coach, Mickey Arthur who persuaded Safraz to bat at the No 4 position.

He also turned down the talks about Pakistan having the extra pressure on them going into the tri-series being the No 1 team. We will definitely go with our best preparation, as in T20s no team is easy to beat. We actually don’t really think about being No. 1 or ratings. When we were not No. 1, we never thought about the rankings so all we have to do is to play naturally without getting into such details. I only urge the players to give their best and leave all the other things aside,” Sarfaraz said.

Pakistan is currently training in Lahore ahead of the tri-series, and the preparations have been ‘good’ according to their captain Sarfraz. “We got a couple of days here (Lahore) and three days there (Zimbabwe) to train before the series. Our preparation is good,” he said.

The pressure of being the captain across formats

Sarfaraz concluded by saying that Australia is quite a strong team. He said that although there are some new players in the Aussie side, they know how to adapt themselves to the conditions. He also admitted that there is definitely additional pressure on him being the skipper of the side across formats.

“Obviously as a captain, you are under pressure because you have to look around at a lot of things, but I always look to grab an opportunity to lead from the front. Whenever I get a chance, I try to win the game with my contribution. I am aware of my individual form and I’ve been working hard to contribute with both with bat and behind the wicket,” he concluded.

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