Pakistan skipper Younis Khan looks hungry and his team looks dangerous, espnstar.com finds out in an exclusive.

By Firdose Moonda

The Pakistan team appear to be famished. If you happen to look into onto one of their eyes, the ravenous glare is cavernous enough to provide a view of their empty bellies. That might be because the fasting month has just come to an end and many of Pakistani cricketers have trained on empty stomachs. But for Younis Khan, there’s a different reason for their hunger. “When you don’t get something for a long time, you only want it more. We don’t play cricket as regularly as the other sides do, so we are hungry to get on the field and play.”

That much is evident in the team. In their warm up matches (against Sri Lanka and the Warriors), Pakistan have had an intensity other teams have lacked. Even though Khan says the matches are just “practice” he admits that because Pakistan get so little of that these days, they lap up every opportunity for training in any form, and it doesn’t hurt that the warm ups gave them opportunity to be competitive as well. “We haven’t really trained a lot in the fasting month, because that’s the month where we need the most rest. So we’ve had to take the warm ups quite seriously.”

So seriously, that Pakistan crushed Sri Lanka by 108 runs in their first warm up match on Friday and the margin could have been bigger if it wasn’t for three dropped catches, two of them put down by Khan himself. In the process, the captain hurt his little finger on his left hand, which already had a minor fracture. “It feels ok but I will have it looked at by the doctor on Monday. I should be cleared to play,” he said, playing it down as nothing more than a niggle.

The injury is not the only thing Khan is making light of. The other is the spotlight on the match against India, to be played next Friday. “People back home have said even if we don’t win the Champions Trophy, we must just make sure we beat India. But I don’t want to see things that way. For me, there is no India-Pakistan game; it’s just another match in the competition and we want to win five matches in a row.” 

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In fact, Khan thinks the rivalry between the two sub-continental foes is seen as a rare dessert to the cricket lover because of how seldom, the two clash. “I think India and Pakistan need to play each other more regularly, perhaps once every two years or in the same type of structure as England and Australia play in the Ashes. That way, when we do face each other in tournaments, even though it will still be a big match, it won’t be that unusual.” Khan hasn’t denied that a win against India would be icing on the cake for him, but he is determined to view that match as just one course in a five course meal.

“We must stay focused because anything can happen in one day cricket. We can beat anyone but we’ve also lost to Bangladesh and even Ireland in the past so we need to concentrate on consistency,” said Khan. For that, he seems to have a very special plan, starting with his bowling, and moving Umar Gul to first change. “We will be using Rana Naveed ul-Hasan to open the bowling. He took five wickets in the warm up match (against Sri Lanka) and he is an asset upfront. Mohammed Amir is our other opening bowler. He is a young guy with lots of pace.”

The bowlers weren’t the only one’s who provided encouraging signs for Khan in the practice match. “Kamran Akmal batted excellently and we saw his ability to cut and pull on these pitches,” said Khan. Akmal smashed 82 off 78 balls in that match. Although Khan used the game to assess his players, he knows that his tournament strategy can’t depend on that match. “We didn’t really use a player like Fawad Alam in the match, but he is our best all round player in terms of being alert in all three elements of his game, especially his fielding. That’s an area that we have really struggled in the past and we will be looking to him to provide inspiration.”

The Pakistan team’s preparation is the entrée to the main event, but before they declare the main course ready for serving there is one area that concerns Khan. “The conditions don’t bother me one bit, but our problem is day/night games. We struggle when chasing, so if I win the toss in any of our day night encounters, I will bat first.” Pakistan’s opening two games are day/night encounters against the West India and India. But the good news for them is that the fasting month is over, and they can eat their fill. They may just do it on the field as well.

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