COLOMBO, Sept 20: Pakistan captain Waqar Younis hopes Saturday’s Champions Trophy match with the Netherlands could be a much-needed turning point in his side’s fortunes.
Pakistan are already out of the tournament after losing to Sri Lanka on Sept 12 and they are also without a coach after Mudassar Nazar was sacked on Tuesday following a run of just three wins from their last 10 matches.
Waqar believes that out of adversity his players can rise again, starting with game against the Dutch.
“We’ve only got 12 to pick from so it is the turn of the youngsters,” Waqar told Reuters on Friday.
“They have got the opportunity now and we won’t be taking it easy. We’ll give it the best we’ve got to get back on to the winning streak and this might be the turning point for us.”
Waqar is convinced Pakistan’s current poor form is just a temporary blip on the graph rather than a terminal decline.
“I take it as a bad patch,” he said. “I’ve had lots of bad patches in my bowling career so it’s one of those patches that you go through. You can’t win all the games and fair enough we’ve lost too many.
PAKISTAN (from): Waqar Younis (captain), Abdul Razzak, Imran Nazir, Misbah ul Haq, Mohammad Sami, Rashid Latif, Saeed Anwar, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar, Shoaib Malik, Wasim Akram, Younis Khan. 12th man to be confirmed.
NETHERLANDS: Roland Lefebvre (captain), Daan van Bunge, Victor Grandia, Feiko Kloppenburg, Tim de Leede, Henk-Jan Mol, Adeel Raja, Edgar Schiferli, Reinout Scholte, Luuk van Troost, Bas Zuiderent. 12th man to be confirmed.—Reuters