LAHORE: Newly-appointed head coach of Pakistan Waqar Younis has said he wants to bring more aggressiveness to the squad ahead of next year’s World Cup.

“My mindset will be to play positive cricket and play to win. There’s no defensive approach involved in it and hopefully players will understand what I am trying to say,” Waqar told the media here on Tuesday, after getting the role of national team’s coach for the second time.

Former Pakistan captain and speedster Waqar has been appointed as head coach for two years on May 6 this year and joined the PCB on July 1.

Waqar had been the coach during Ijaz Butt’s tenure in 2010-11 but quit the job midway on medical grounds. But later he was seen commentating on TV which raised doubts that he left the PCB for some other reasons.

Waqar said that his team would not play defensive cricket but they play for a win.

“I am here with the hope to bring improvement in the national team,” he said.

Waqar said he returned for his second stint with a positive frame of mind.

“I have learnt from my past mistakes and I will try not to repeat those. I believe we can build a strong team which possesses talented players,” Waqar vowed.

“I also brought some improvement in my previous tenure of coaching and banking on my 20 years of experience, I believe this team can beat any team of the world,” he added.

“I have set short and long term goals. Next year’s World Cup is my main target along with this year’s series against Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Australia,” he said.

Waqar said they could prepare a strong team for the World Cup as they had a couple of months with them.

“We need both experienced and young players for Australia and New Zealand’s bouncy tracks,” he said.

He said there was no emergency at the moment to pick a T20 captain after Mohammad Hafeez quit the job in the back-drop of Pakistan’s poor performance at the last World T20.

Waqar said his main focus had always been to improve fitness and fielding of the players and hailed PCB’s decision of organising fitness camp in May-June this year.

He welcomed Zimbabwean Grant Flower as batting coach of the national team and hoped the guy would deliver his best.

The PCB for the first time has decided that chief selector Moin Khan will also visit with the national team as its manager. This means Moin will help Waqar in finalising the playing XI.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2014