Mohammad Hafeez proud of Pakistan team

Pakistan’s Twenty20 skipper Mohammad Hafeez is proud of his team’s effort in the World T20, despite an awful semi-final loss at the hands of Sri Lanka.

The Green Shirts failed to cope with the pressure, and lost the game by 16 runs. Rangana Herath proved to be Sri Lanka’s main weapon, as he scalped three crucial wickets only for 25 runs.

Batting first, the Lankans put up a decent score of 139 on the board. Later in the game, the ball started staying very low and as a result, the Lankan spinners were very hard to play. Pakistan’s middle-order failed terribly, and an embarrassing loss came
to Hafeez’s way.

Despite a below par show in the semi-final, Hafeez believes his side played very good cricket, adding that Sri Lanka deserved to be in the final.

"We played positive cricket and I am proud of my team," Hafeez said. "Sri Lanka deserved to win and they are worthy finalists on the basis of what they have done in this tournament."

"The pitch was turning and it was difficult to score runs and we lost some wickets in the middle and couldn’t stage a comeback. We should have chased that down."

Veteran all-rounder Shahid Afridi is currently under fire because of his lacklustre show in the big event. He scored 30 runs, and took only four wickets in the whole tournament.

In the crucial semi-final encounter, Afridi lost his wicket on the very first ball. Hafeez, however, defended his all-rounder, saying that Afridi is still a match-winner.

"There is no doubt that he still is a match-winner," said Hafeez. "There is no doubt about his abilities. He is going through very bad form at the moment. He worked hard to come out of it but failed."

"I would not say that we are bad chasers but, yes, it is a concern and we have to sort that out with some planning because it has become a problem."

Sri Lanka are now set to meet West Indies in the grand finale. The Caribbean Kings have made it to the big game following their comprehensive win over Australia in the second semi-final.

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Oct 6 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