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| March 3, 2003 | Monday | Zul Hijjah 29, 1423 |
Difficult to recover now: Waqar
JOHANNESBURG, March 2: Pakistan captain Waqar Younis admitted on Sunday his team will find it difficult to recover from the stunning defeat to India.
“It will not be easy to lift the team after losing to India,” Waqar said a day after his
side crashed to a six-wicket humilation at Centurion on Saturday.
Pakistan, stranded on eight points from five games, must not only defeat Zimbabwe handsomely at Bulawayo on Tuesday to stay in contention for the Super Six.
When Pakistan won the World Cup in 1992, they made it to the semifinals only after Australia brushed aside the West Indies in their last league match.
“I hate to go through the back door,” the Pakistani captain said.
“We are just not playing good cricket and it is frustrating,” said W aqar, who may not be retained as captain after the World Cup.
“At the moment I am more concerned about my team, what happens afterwards will be dealt with later.”
India joined defending champions Australia in the Super Six after Sachin Tendulkar smashed a superb 98 off 75 balls to steer his team towards Pakistan’s challenging 273-7.
“India played much better cricket than us and Sachin took the game away from us,” said Waqar, who dismissed Virender Sehwag and Saurav Ganguly off successive deliveries to raise Pakistan’s hopes.
“When we got Tendulkar we thought there was a chance but Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj Singh played very sensibly.”—AFP
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