Most of the Pakistan squad members have not played in India before, but captain Babar Azam stays confident as he believes his team has done their homework for the ODI World Cup beginning on October 5.
With the team’s visas finally cleared, Pakistan will reach Hyderabad via Dubai on Wednesday. Of their current squad players, only left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz and middle-order batter Agha Salman have played in India before. Babar could not travel to India for the T20 World Cup in 2016 owing to an injury.
“Although we have not played in India before, we are not taking too much pressure. We have done our research and we have heard the conditions there are similar to those of other Asian countries,” Babar said during Pakistan’s pre-departure news conference in Lahore on Tuesday.
“I hope we come back with a trophy this time.”
If Pakistan are to fare well in this World Cup, Babar will need to score a bagful of runs in the crunch games which obviously includes that against India. The skipper himself, too, is looking forward to the marquee clash in Ahmedabad on October 14.
“I’m pretty excited to play in Ahmedabad as it will be jam-packed. I’ll try my best to perform to my potential.
“I’m not worried about individual accolades though as I want to make sure whatever I do helps in producing a good result for the team,” Babar said.
Pakistan though had cut a sorry figure in last month’s Asia Cup. “We’ve lapsed in fielding and in our wicket-taking abilities in the middle overs, but we are going to work on it and hopefully, we’ll not repeat them as we’ve made plans accordingly,” Babar said.
No bad blood
Babar also asserted there was no bad blood in the dressing room following the Asia
Cup disappointment, as had been reported in sections of the media.
“There is no ill will in the dressing room. There are discussions after every loss, but they get twisted into something else entirely. The entire team is like a family and there is love and respect there.”
Pakistan pace spearhead Shaheen Shah Afridi, too, had shared a picture of Babar and himself earlier on X, captioning it “family” with a heart emoticon.
