Kamal Ghorui
As the afternoon flight to Chennai from Colombo was about to take off, there were a lot of Pakistan fans waiting in the queue. Two flights — one to Lahore and the other to Karachi — were scheduled around the same time and you could over-hear their conversations. It was mostly about Pakistan’s chances and how good India are. When TOI asked a few of them what they felt about a rematch with India later in the tournament, a couple of them said, “Inshallah, ho jayega… we will come again if that happens.”Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!That’s the cautious optimism of the fans. But for that to happen again, Pakistan have to do a lot of things right, starting with winning their game against Namibia on Wednesday in Colombo. If they win, or even if there is a washout, they go through to the Super 8s and take on a formidable lineup of New Zealand, Sri Lanka and England. But if they lose, they are out and the USA, who already have a better net run-rate than Pakistan, will go through along with India.
Despite the sense of gloom that engulfed the Pakistan contingent on Sunday after the loss to India, there was a silver lining. It was the performance of the two spinners, Usman Tariq and Saim Ayub, who bowl a little bit of everything. Left-arm spinner Mohammed Nawaz was also pretty decent, even though Shadab Khan and Abrar Ahmed were below par.There’s nothing in the Namibia side that should bother Pakistan. But then, given Pakistan’s ability to self-destruct, you can’t take anything for granted.Tariq, who was Pakistan’s best bowler against India, tried to be as positive as possible. “It’s difficult when you don’t work on your mistakes. We just had a conversation about the areas where we had lapses. We’ll work on those and look for-ward to the next matches so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes,” Tariq said on the eve of their game at the SSC.It’s a 3 pm match, the pitch is a slow-turner and the best thing for Pakistan would be to bat first if they win the toss. In a pres-sure game, it will be important for them to have the runs on the board and pressurise the opposition with the spinners.Even though the Pakistan batting is no great shakes, they should manage things against Namibia with some amount of application. The real worry though for the 2009 champions is the form of their best pacer, Shaheen Afridi. He was immensely disappointing against India and the Namibia game can be the right platform for Pakistan to try either Naseem Shah or Salman Mirza, if not both.Tariq, though, defended Afridi, saying that the pacer isn’t under “any special pressure”. “We were just trying to execute our plans. Performances depend on the day. If the bowling unit missed their lines, we’ll focus on those things and work to improve in the next match,” Tariq said. It’s absolutely mandatory that Tariq’s colleagues do that on Wednesday and keep themselves alive in this World Cup.
