Inside the Pakistani camp What is Naqvi’s problem
Despite the gloom that gripped the Pakistan contingent on Sunday after the loss to India, they remained silver. It was the performance of two spinners, Usman Tariq and Saim Ayub, who bowl a bit of everything. Left-armer Mohammed Nawaz was also quite decent, though Shadab Khan and Abrar Ahmed were below par.There is nothing on the Namibian side to trouble Pakistan. But then, given Pakistan’s capacity for self-destruction, you can’t take anything for granted.Tariq, who was Pakistan’s best bowler against India, tried to be as positive as possible. “It’s difficult when you don’t work on your mistakes. We just talked about the areas where we had mistakes. We will work on them and look forward to the next matches so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes,” Tariq said on the eve of their match at SSC.It’s a 3pm match, the pitch is turning slowly and it would be best for Pakistan to bat first if they win the toss. In a pressure game, it will be important for them to have runs on the board and pressure the opposition with spinners.While Pakistan’s batting isn’t much of a shake-up, they should manage against Namibia with some amount of application. However, the real worry for the 2009 champions is the form of their best pacer, Shaheen Afridi. He was a huge disappointment against India and the Namibia game may be the right platform for Pakistan to try Naseem Shah or Salman Mirza, if not both.However, Tariq defended Afridi and said the pacemaker was under “no particular pressure”. “We just tried to execute our plans. Performances depend on the day. If the bowling unit has missed its lines, we will focus on those things and work to improve in the next game,” Tariq said. It is absolutely mandatory that Tariq’s teammates do it on Wednesday to stay alive in this World Cup.