Sri Lanka Premier League will help Pakistan in T20 World Cup, says Mohammad Hafeez

Pakistan Twenty20 skipper Mohammad Hafeez feels playing in the Sri Lanka Premier League has given his teammates a fair idea of the conditions before the upcoming T20 World Cup, getting started next month.

"Most of Pakistani players in the T20 World Cup squad are in the SLPL and two venues in SLPL (R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo and Pallekele International Stadium in Kandy) will host the T20 World Cup and so it will help us. We will get into the groove easily,"
Hafeez, who plays for Wayamba United, said in an interaction.

"The PCB gave permission to play in SLPL as it thinks it would be helpful for us since the World Cup will be held here in a few days time. As a captain, I want Pakistan to win each match of the World Cup and in fact the trophy. But T20 is an unpredictable
game and so I don’t want to predict anything," he added.

Besides Hafeez, a number of Pakistani players took part in the T20 championship, such as Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq, Shoaib Malik, Kamran Akmal, Umar Gul, Shoail Tanvir, Saeed Ajmal, Umar Akmal and Imran Nazir.

Taking about IPL and SLPL, Hafeez described that the T20 tournaments have given youngsters a great opportunity to show their talent at the international level, adding that such championships are good for the sport.

"I am a big fan of Test cricket but I must say that T20 leagues, be it IPL or SLPL, have helped the youngsters, especially of the home country to come through. It is good for the game. The youngsters got to play with the best in the country and international
players. In Wayamba United, we have players like Akhila Dhananjaya who have not played any first class cricket but is in the SLPL. He has done well and has got the national call-up," he stated.

"I played in the IPL first season (for Kolkata Knight Riders) and I would love to play again given a chance. I play in the three formats and it is difficult to find the time to play in such leagues. Whenever there is no clash with international schedule
I want to play in other leagues also just like I am playing in SLPL," added the all-rounder.

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Aug 26 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