June 28, 2019
LEEDS: Realising the fact that they cannot be complacent against minnows Afghanistan in their World Cup match at Headingley, the Pakistan team did all their fine-tuning ahead of the game in a practice session on Saturday.
Pakistan's practice session started with head coach Mickey Arthur giving a pep talk to the players in the middle of the ground. The pep talk is a common practice usually done indoors before each training session, but on Friday the players opted to do it outside, in the pleasant weather of Leeds.
Players discussed their previous performance with the coach and talked about the new opponents. Captain Sarfaraz Ahmed also spoke about the strategies to control Afghanistan.
It was observed that team was working hard to further improve their fielding, with senior all-rounder Shoaib Malik guiding players with high catches.
Batsmen also worked hard in the nets during the practice session which lasted for over three hours.
Pakistan is set to play Afghanistan in the World Cup group stage match on Saturday at the Leeds cricket ground in Headingley. The men-in-green need to win the match to keep their hopes alive of reaching the competition's semi-finals.