ISLAMABAD, July 11: President General Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday that he would speak to the Australian Prime Minister, if the need arose, to have their cricket team tour Pakistan for a scheduled Test series this October.

Musharraf who had invited the victorious Pakistan team that beat Australia 2-1 last month in the Challenger II Series Down Under to the President House, said he really wanted them to come.

He was told by Pakistan cricket chief Lt. Gen Tauqir Zia that if the matter was taken up at the highest level the Aussies may well decide to tour.

The Australians are reluctant to play a three-Test series here after two bomb blasts in Karachi in successive months left the security situation in Pakistan open to question.

The PCB however is in contact with the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) and has still not given up, although Bangladesh have already been lined up as a neutral venue.

Musharraf meanwhile sounded quite happy when he spoke to the players about their marvellous success over the mighty Aussies. “It is good that you have beaten a side that claimed to be the champions.”

He felt that the current Pakistan team under Waqar Younis was capable of winning the next year’s World Cup in South Africa. “You have the potential to win it, even my mother thinks so because she is glued to the television whenever there’s cricket going on.”

He had words of advice for the team: “Go in as a winner because nerves are important. If you enter the field with defeat on your mind, then you cannot win. You have to be mentally offensive and aggressive to achieve victory.”

“Your total focus on match days should be on the game with no extra-curricular activity.”

While praising the performances of Waqar, Wasim Akram, Yousuf Youhanna, Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Akhtar, Musharraf warned the team that batting collapse should be avoided. “This should not happen.”

The president also spoke of his desire of Pakistan beating India in India. “I really want that we go there and defeat them but I think they are actually scared of playing us.”

He said it was strange that the Indians were playing us in other sports but when it came to cricket they just keep away.

Pakistan and India have not played any cricket for nearly two years now.