ICC World Cup 2023: ‘Play the Pakistan way’

Expectations run high and so will the pressure of playing in India Amidst this palpable tension excitement and suspense Pakistan kickoff their campaign against The Netherlands at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on FridayThe Asian Games was a big disaster In fact Pakistan have little to show in sports barring cricket Sadly they have slipped badly in hockey and squashmdashdisciplines in which they reigned supreme in the past Although the odds are stacked against Pakistan they will look for redemption from the Babar Azamled team in this World CupAlso ReadICC World Cup 2023 Joe Root makes 77 as England struggle to 2829 against KiwisThe results are not encouraging for Pakistan in their runup to the World Cup They lost to India and Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka After landing in Hyderabad the Babarled team suffered defeats in the two warmup games against New Zealand and AustraliaPressure on PakistanIs there any pressure Mickey Arthur director of Pakistan cricket gave a big smile and said ldquoThe boys have loved being here in India but the pressure of a World Cup is always massive Our boys are really in a good place and part of the attraction for me is that it is a very similar squad to what we had in 2019 and itrsquos almost unfinished business I felt in 2019 we were very very close there with these young boys And those young boys have now become men and have become very experienced These guys are ready for everything thatrsquos thrown at them in this competitionrdquoMickey ArthurArthur boasted that his team have one of the best attacks in the competition ldquoOur bowling attack is one of the best and with runs on the board our bowlers can generally defend that So you watch the likes of England and Australia playing a brand of cricket but we play a brand called the Pakistan way and it suits our teamrsquos dynamics and hopefully we can win the World Cup with thisrdquoNot bothered by the recent results Arthur said ldquoForm comes and goes but the quality of the players in the positions is undoubted We are just making sure that those guys are in a great space technically and mentally Hopefully they click tomorrow and from there the confidence just grows They are one performance away from getting their confidence and hopefully we get that one tomorrowrdquoPitch looks goodBeing pretty happy with the venue Arthur added ldquoit looks like an incredibly good wicket and the curator has done a great jobrdquoFor The Netherlands itrsquos a big thing to play in this World Cup and for the first time there will be live telecast in their country according to Bas de Leede whose father Tim also played in India in the 1996 World Cup ldquoWe are excited and have spent quite a bit of time in India and the closer you are going to get to the first game the more excited you are going to get I think we are ready and we did spend some time in Bangalore and have the right prep for tomorrowrsquos gamerdquo de Leede saidThe associate team are playing in the World Cup after a long time They had beaten big guns like West Indies and Zimbabwe in the qualifiers in Zimbabwe before losing to Sri Lanka in the final ldquoItrsquos been a long time for us in the World Cups and itrsquos a very young group and we are in the right space to play against Pakistan tomorrow and hopefully beat themrdquo said de Leede who took a fivefor and scored a century against Scotland in the qualifiersThey have two players of Indian origin in Vikramjit Singh and Teja Nidamanuru De Leede said for the Teluguborn Teja it is a homecoming ldquoHe has two ODI centuries and he has shown what he can dorsquorsquoBut de Leede did agree that playing against the class of Shaheen Afridi will be a challenge ldquoShaheen and Haris Rauf are two quality pacers and something we donrsquot face too often is the leftarm swing It was a wakeup call against Mitchell Starc the other day but we still need to be confident in our abilities Hopefully we play Shaheen better than we played Starc the other dayrdquo