Trust the Pakistanis to come well-prepared for the Champions Trophy to be held in South Africa next month. Former captain Javed Miandad has ordered a new grassy track at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore so that the Pakistani batsmen get the right kind of practice before landing in South Africa for the ICC Champions Trophy beginning next month.
For the starters, he has ordered the preparation of grassy three-foot wide pitches at the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore where the 10-day national conditioning camp for the Champions Trophy begins from Tuesday.
“The idea is to get the batsmen to play on surfaces similar to those in South Africa. Cricket is all in the mind and if a player is mentally focused. he can succeed anywhere,” Miandad said in an interview to a news agency (Press Trust of India).
“The playing conditions and pitches at the Wanderers and Centurion grounds are conducive to pace bowling and our batsmen need to be prepared to cope with the conditions there,” Miandad said.
The Pakistan Cricket Board has appointed Miandad, also Director of Cricket Affairs in the board, to help out the batsmen after a string of batting failures on the recent tour of Sri Lanka where Pakistan lost both the Test and one-day series.
“Cricket is a mind game. If a player is not confident, he will always struggle. They are always solutions to tackle different conditions,” Miandad said.
If one must recall, Pakistan underwent a psychological training in the mountains of Pakistan before they went for the Twenty20 World Cup which Younis Khan and his men won. The situation is similar to the team as no one is expecting them to do well but Pakistan are always known to spring surprises..
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