LAHORE: Pakistan cricket team and management should forget the crushing nine-wicket defeat in the first One-day International at the hands of England on Thursday like a bad dream, work hard and play with their full potential to come back in the series, former Pakistan captain, manager and coach Intikhab Alam said on Friday.

“I am not surprised at the defeat as you know against which teams and on which pitches we have been playing before touring England where conditions have always been tough for us,” Intikhab said while commenting on Pakistan’s unexpected defeat after England had lost the services of seven first-choice players just two days before the series opener in Cardiff due to positive Covid-19 cases,

“But such [unfavourable] things happen in cricket and I think the team should treat the [Cardiff loss] like a bad dream and forget it and now they have to work harder. If they play with full potential, with self-belief without the fear of losing, they can make a comeback,” the 79-year-old Intikhab added.

He added, “We should give full credit to the England side as they deserve the victory. Basically, they [England] have a very strong county cricket system, which produces highly talented players and gives them good replacements who showed their worth in Cardiff.”

Intikhab said the marked difference between pitches in England and tracks of Pakistan and the UAE matters a lot, adding unless the PCB prepares fast and seaming pitches enabling players to raise their game at the domestic level the chronic problem of failing on such pitches abroad would continue to haunt the green-shirts.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2021