Pakistan cricketer Azhar Ali has backed skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed to deliver another ICC Trophy. The test batsman thinks that the current team possess the quality to win the world cup.
He then backed captain Sarfaraz Ahmed and revealed the skipper has the passion to drive the team to the trophy. Pakistan are in contention for semi finals after a huge revival to their world cup campaign. Speaking to a Pakistan cricket website, Azhar Ali completely trusts skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed to guide the team to a third ICC event win.
“He is an astute and strong captain and under him, Pakistan has already won the ICC under-19 World Cup and the Champions Trophy and I think he has the ability to win another ICC title this time,” he said.
However, after the loss to India, Pakistan cricket team faced the wrath of the fans. One fan even went the distance and abused Sarfaraz Ahmed in most unimaginable way. But the skipper dealt the situation well.
Since that defeat, Pakistan came back strongly winning important games against South Africa and New Zealand. Now they are looking like a team destined for semi finals. Azhar Ali was quick to condemn such activities and revealed the Pakistan needs all the support from the fans.
“Abusing players is sad because a team needs all support the most when it is not doing well,” he said
“When a team is winning everyone is behind it but it is when your team is not doing well when you must be behind it,” he said.
Pakistan are looking favorites to reach semi finals of ICC world cup 2019.
Meanwhile, Azhar Ali announced his retirement from ODI cricket last year. He played 53 ODIs for Pakistan between 2015 and 2017. Azhar was also part of the 2017 Champions Trophy winning team as well. However, he is currently part of only the Test team setup.
The veteran batsman is one of the most reliable players for Pakistan in the longest format. He has played 73 test matches for Pakistan so far. But he reveals no regrets over his decision to retire from the ODIs.
“I took the correct decision because I was facing an injury problem plus after the retirements of Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq I wanted to focus completely on test matches,” he said.
Pakistan had the most horrendous start to their world cup campaign. They were bamboozled by West Indies in their opening game. However, they came back strongly against England and surprised everyone. But the inconsistency continued as they lost against both Australia and India.
But after that bitter defeat, the team got back together and are now playing some impressive cricket. Consecutive wins against South Africa and New Zealand help them stay in serious contention for the semi final places.
They need to win against both Afghanistan and Bangladesh in their final two group matches to stand a decent chance for their qualification to knockout matches.