Bangladesh played like Australia in Asia Cup final, says Shahid Afridi

Pakistan’s veteran all-rounder Shahid Afridi admired Bangladesh for superb performance in the Asia Cup final, and said that the Tigers were as good as Australia.

The Bengalis made it to the finale of Asia Cup by beating India and Sri Lanka in the first round. They also played excellently in the final and gave Pakistan a real hard time in the middle.

However, luck eventually turned in favour of the Men in Green, who won the title just by a couple of runs. Afridi, who scooped Man of the Match award in the final, heaped special praise on the Bengali side, saying that Bangladesh played like mighty Australia
in the final.

"It seemed as if we were playing against Australia in the final. Bangladesh have matured a lot as a team and it felt good to win such a hard final," Afridi told reporters after reaching Pakistan on Frinday.

Despite the fact that Pakistan played wonderful cricket to win the crown after 12 years, Afridi does not want his teammates to be complacent. He stated in clear terms that Pakistan may have won the tournament, the side still has a lot of improve.

"We need improvement in some areas and we need to produce more players. I would urge the cricket authorities to lay lot of stress on our domestic cricket and implement a 10-year plan so that we can get maximum number of quality players," he shared.

On Bangladesh’s significant improvement over the last few months, the aggressive all-rounder added, "I think by holding the BPL they did well and their players fought hard. I think we also need to make our domestic cricket as competitive as possible. We
can look at the examples of the IPL and BPL while counting the benefits of such events."

When asked about his personal performance in the final, the former skipper expressed delight over contributing for the winning cause.

He described, "It feels good that whenever I bowl well we tend to win matches. I was struggling before the final and I worked hard in the nets so I am happy I could perform in the final and win the Man-of-the-Match award."

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Mar 24 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry