Trust Pakistan to be the darkhorses for the Champions Trophy 2009 to start in South Africa in a week’s time. In their ongoing camp Pakistan Cricket Board director Javed Miandad is using innovative techniques to prepare the national team for the upcoming Champions Trophy to be held in South Africa.
The Pakistani players are holding daily extended three to four sessions under lights at the national stadium on the insistence of Miandad. “A 50-overs match means you have to be on the field for atleast seven hours and the way I am training these players it is tailor made to prepare them for the conditions in South Africa,” said Miandad, who has also been appointed as the batting consultant for the national and junior teams.
Since the training camp started on Saturday, Miandad has focused on holding special sessions with groups of players and on Sunday he spent his time concentrating on Misbah-ul-Haq, young Umar Akmal and Shoaib Malik.
One method has been to make the batsmen play on a bouncy pitch with reduced width forcing them to play straight and avoid square on shots.
Another method has been to get them to negotiate with extra bounce by making them short pitched balls which come off a concrete slab at fast pace thrown by Miandad.
“These are scoring strokes in the South African conditions specially in the Champions Trophy if they are played with care. As long as the rate of success is more then failure these shots are very productive in scoring runs,” the former master batsman told a Indian news agency.
Pakistan is grouped with West Indies, India and Australia in the Champions Trophy qualifying stage that begins from September 22.
“We have a very strong pace attack and we are blessed with pace bowling talent so why not use it effectively to our strength,” Miandad said.
The Pakistan squad for the eight nation tournament includes pace bowlers, Muhammad Asif, Umar Gul, Rao Iftikhar, Rana Naved and Muhammad Aamer and Miandad says all these bowlers carry plenty of pace and the ability to bounce out batsmen.
{ 0 comments… add one now }