Karachi: Pakistan’s chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq is confident that the national team will break its six-match losing streak in the World Cup against India when it takes on the arch-rivals at the mega-event June 16.
Pakistan have never won against India in a World Cup match but the former Test captain feels that they can post a breakthrough victory against the neighbours this time around when the two teams meet at Manchester next month.
“People take a Indo-Pak match very seriously and some even go on to say that ‘we will be happy even if only we can win against India during the World Cup’,” said Inzamam.
“I’m hopeful that we will end our losing streak against India in World Cup matches,” he told a Pakistan Cricket website.
The veteran of 120 Tests, however, said that the World Cup is not just about the match against India, and ‘Pakistan have the potential to beat other sides as well’.
Pakistan go into the World Cup having suffered 10 successive ODI defeats and were also beaten by Afghanistan in the warm-up match of the World Cup.
Inzamam, who is under-fire in recent times for making late changes in the World Cup squad, spoke about the difficulties of selecting national team and the pressure that comes with it.
“People think it is easy to jot down 14-15 players in order to form a squad but it’s nothing like that because there is a lot of pressure. For example it was very difficult for us to select fast-bowlers for the World Cup because there were a lot of good names around including the likes of (Mohammad) Amir, Junaid (Khan) and (Usman Khan) Shinwari,” said the 49-year-old.
Defending the selections of pacers Mohammad Hasnain and Wahab Riaz, Inzamam said: “Like I said before pace of Hasnain, who can touch 150 kph, would add a new dimension to our bowling attack because the rest of the bowlers penetrate only around the 130-140 kph mark.”
PTI
