KARACHI, 27 July 2007 — Pakistan will know in a week’s time whether they can warm up for this September’s inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa by competing in a four-nation T20 contest in Kenya.
A Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) official told ‘Arab News’ on Friday that organizers of a proposed Twenty20 tournament in Kenya are working overtime to hold the event ahead of the T20 World Cup which gets under way from Sept. 11.
“We are very hopeful that the Twenty20 tournament will go ahead according to plans but would only know for sure in about a week’s time,” said Dr Ahsan Hameed Malik, PCB’s Director of Communications.
Malik said that Pakistan are quite interested in taking part in the Kenya tournament saying that it would provide their team with ample match practice ahead of the T20 World Cup. He said that Kenya and Bangladesh are already in while the hosts are also trying to rope in another team to make it a quadrangular tournament.
Malik said that if the tournament is held then the Pakistani squad would leave for Kenya end of August and would stay there for almost a week before arriving in South Africa on Sept. 7. Pakistan have been drawn with old rivals India and tournament underdogs Scotland in Group D. The 12-contest would conclude on September 24. Pakistan manager Talat Ali said that he would love to see his team competing in a warm-up tournament ahead of the T20 World Cup.
“My team has been training hard in recent weeks but the players are short of match practice,” said Talat, a former Pakistan Test cricketer. “We believe that a tournament in Kenya would help us properly warm up for the Twenty20 World Cup,” he added.
Pakistan have just played three one-dayers (against Sri Lanka) since their embarrassing World Cup exit in March as two more games that were to be held in Scotland earlier this month were washed out.
Talat pointed out that the conditions in Kenya would be quite similar to South Africa and a week’s stay there would help his boys adapt to ‘African conditions’.
Pakistan are hoping to compensate for a disastrous World Cup campaign in the Caribbean this March by winning the inaugural T20 World Championship.
“For us the assignment is South Africa is very important because our team has a point to prove after its first round exit in the World Cup,” said Talat. Pakistan got knocked out of the World Cup after successive defeats against hosts the West Indies and minnows Ireland in Kingston, Jamaica.
The Pakistanis have since been licking their wounds and Talat is confident that a series of conditioning camps would help his boys fully ready for the T20 World Cup. Talat’s charges are currently training in Lahore where several members of Pakistan preliminary T20 World Cup squad played in a practice match at the Gaddafi Stadium on Friday. A team led by Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik recorded an easy win over a line-up captained by Salman Butt, Pakistan’s new vice-captain. Butt score a fifty as his team posted 116 in 20 overs. Malik responded with a match-winning fifty as his team reached the target with a couple of overs to spare. The highlight of the match was the fact that comeback pace star Shoaib Akhtar bowled eight overs at a ‘lightning pace’.
“Shoaib bowled at a lighting pace,” Talat. “He bowled four overs each in both the innings and looked really sharp.”
Pakistani players will play three more matches on Saturday, Sunday and Monday and after a brief rest would reassemble for the next phase of the camp in Karachi.
