Pakistan’s opening encounter of the Asia Cup is towards Oman on Friday, however Sunday’s marquee spectacle versus India featured prominently in coach Mike Hesson’s pre-match media interplay. Instead of trotting out cliches in regards to the Pakistanis taking one recreation at a time, the New Zealander was greater than keen to have his say on the large battle.
“Being part of a highly-charged event is going to be exciting,” Hesson, who took the reins in May, stated on Thursday. “From my perspective, just like anytime you enter the final of a world event, it is about keeping everybody focused on the job at hand. We know India is obviously hugely confident and rightfully so. But we are very much focused on improving as a team day by day. We are well aware of the challenge of the task ahead and we are certainly looking forward to it.”
In India’s complete win over the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Wednesday, spinners Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy and Axar Patel got here good. But Hesson believes his tweakers can be simply as deadly. In the lead-up to this occasion, Pakistan received a tri-series involving Afghanistan and UAE in Sharjah on pitches that spun significantly. Left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz, leggie Abrar Ahmed and left-arm wrist-spinner Sufiyan Muqeem are part of Pakistan’s armoury.
“I don’t think this pitch is going to spin as much. Even yesterday, when Kuldeep bowled, it didn’t spin a huge amount. But when you have wrist spinners, the surface doesn’t matter as much. The beauty of our side is we have got five spinners. We have got Nawaz. And obviously we’ve had Abrar and Sufiyan do as well as they have. Saim Ayub is now in the top 10 all-rounders in the world, and Salman Agha has hardly bowled. We have got a lot of spin bowling options if we think conditions suit that,” Hesson enthused.
