LAHORE: Former Pakistan cricket captain, Zaheer Abbas said on Wednesday that Pakistan team needs a face saving victory when it play Australia in the fifth and last one-day international in Australia.
“A victory is badly needed to salvage the pride of the team and Pakistan team should do a rare guard action to strike a win to end the tour on face saving note,” he told APP here.
The former President of International Cricket Council said collective efforts and greater confidence are needed to perform a victory against the fancied Australian side.
If the team played unitedly then they could win against Australia as low performance would not serve any purpose, he asserted.
To a question, he said, “Victory and defeat go hand in hand.” If a team suffered from defeat after playing to their full potential then they could win the next match by elevating their performance.
“Pakistan team need the services of physiologist to help the players to learn from teams victory or defeat and their good performance as well as mistakes to inspire the players to perform to a higher level,” he added.
Zaheer Abbas said Pakistan was playing majority of their cricket series at neutral venue of United Arab Emirates due to suspension of international cricket in Pakistan and playing on a typical surface the team faced a lot of difficulty during the tour of New Zealand and Australia.
“It is a major set back that international cricket is not being played in Pakistan and it has brought a negative impact on our overall cricket,” he said adding “There is dire need that international cricket should return to Pakistan as early as possible.”
Zaheer Abbas called the ICC to play its due role for ensuring the return of international cricket to Pakistan.
“It is in the larger interest of our cricket that foreign teams start playing cricket here as we have different type of wickets at our cricket centres and our players will learn a lot while playing on such wickets while facing strong opposition,” he said.
