Waqar Hopeful of Pakistan’s Prospects

After a good series against Zimbabwe at home, Pakistan move from the dusty Lahore lanes to the Sand beaches of Sri Lanka to begin a 52 days tour of the island nation which comprise of three tests, five ODIs and two T20 internationals, but this time it will be a tough test for the Pakistani side.

Former Pakistan great and current Head Coach, Waqar Younis hopes that his side, led by Azhar Ali can pull off an upset against the Lankans and qualify for the Champions Trophy. “I am confident that we will qualify for the Champions Trophy. We obviously have to win the series and it’s important for us to win at least 3-2, but we will push to win more than three matches” the coach said. Pakistan currently sits at a 9th position in ODI rankings and need to climb at least a place to make through the CT.

Waqar said in his interview that the team is confident of doing well but accepted the fact that the One day side is ‘weaker’ than the test outfit. He also lamented the loss of their spinning ace Saeed Ajmal and their supposed X-factor Mohammed Irfan.

“The biggest setback we had was the ouster of Saeed Ajmal, who was a match winner for us for many years ” Waqar said “Our X factor Irfan got unfit, Hafeez was unavailable for some time , so there were things beyond our control”, he added.

However he was confident that the youngsters would step up this time as their last tour to Bangladesh was disastrous. He also cited that the team has a lot of positives and that the bad phase seems to be fading out.