July 20, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 23, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

LAHORE, July 19: Pakistan cricket team’s chances of success in second Test against England at the Old Trafford are slim mainly due to their beleaguered pace battery, former Test captain Intikhab Alam said on Wednesday.

The second Test begins at Manchester from July 27 while the first match of the four-Test series ended in a draw at Lord's earlier this week.

"The pitch at the Old Trafford is bouncy and will certainly help fast bowlers,” said the former all-rounder while talking to Dawn here.

“But since the main pacers of Pakistan are not available due to injuries, the visitors are unlikely to make the best use of the wicket at Manchester.”

Intikhab feared that the work load on leg-spinner Danish Kaneria may create yet another crisis for the visitors in the series.

“Pakistan’s problems may be compounded if England captain Andrew Flintoff is declared fit for the Test.”

Inzamam’s men are currently suffering from extreme dearth of fast bowling resources on the tour with pace ace Shoaib Akhtar, medium-pacer Mohammad Asif and all-rounder Rana Naved-ul-Hasan nursing serious injuries.

Expectations are not running high with the back-up talent available with Pakistan in England which includes medium-pacer Rao Iftikhar and uncapped Samiullah Niazi who joined the squad this week.

In a sharp reference to the deteriorating standard of players’ fitness, Intikhab said the current scenario was ample proof of how serious the players were about their match fitness.

"When the training camp for the England tour was held in Lahore, most of the players were not in the ideal physical condition for the extensive training which was held in extremely hot weather," he observed.

"Moreover, a professional player should have minimum of two-hour training daily without any rest but it seems that our players are not used to regular practice," he said.

Commenting on Pakistan’s performance at Lord’s, Intikhab said that it was a ‘mixed’ display by the team.

He looked clearly disappointed with the fielding as well as the standard of wicketkeeping in the match by the Pakistanis and said that it was not at par with the home side.

Besides, the failure of both the openers Salman Butt and Imran Farhat also drew criticism from Intikhab who felt that both the players lacked proper technique to counter high class bowling.

"Both the openers repeated their old mistakes and that showed that coach Woolmer has failed in removing the technical flaws in their batting," Intikhab said.

The former skipper, however, praised the batting feats of Mohammad Yousuf and captain Inzamam-ul-Haq at Lord’s.

"Both Inzamam and Yousuf performed superbly while youngster Faisal Iqbal also proved his mettle under difficult conditions,” he said.