Sarfraz Ahmed said that they way Junaid Khan and Mohammad Amir bowled was the turning point. (Source: Reuters)
Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed gave credit to the bowlers for turning the game in their favour after defeat to India in the opening game of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017. He said that the way Junaid Khan and Mohammad Amir bowled was the turning point.
Giving credit to the team management, Ahmed said, “Obviously nobody was rating us and they were writing us off, but once again I give all the credit to the team management for boosting us after the India game, especially our bowlers. The way Junaid [Khan] and Amir bowled was a turning point. I hope we can carry the momentum ahead and take a lot of confidence.”
Talking about the clash against Sri Lanka that they won by three wickets, Ahmed said that they started well but lost momentum after Fakhar Zaman got dismissed. “If you look at the game we started well but after Fakhar Zaman got out we lost the momentum and then most of our dismissals were soft which definitely is an area of concern for us. We will sit tomorrow and talk about this and hopefully we will recover from this,” he said.
The 30-year-old captain further said that the dismissals dented their flow or they would have won the match with six-seven wickets. He said, “After the way we started we could have finished this game with six or seven wickets in hand but those dismissals really dented us. We should have won by a good margin but a win is a win. Yes, we need to sit and talk about it and realise that if we a settled that we should take the game to the end rather than leaving it for the upcoming batsmen.”
Pakistan now face England in the semifinals on Wednesday and Ahmed feels that they need to play positive cricket. “We have to play positive cricket as England have been playing positive cricket in the last two years. Obviously we have to play hard and we will try to replicate our last year performance to win them again in Cardiff. If you’re playing a world class team you play more positive cricket. So will definitely do that against England,” he said.