Pakistan Vs West Indies: Team’s focus is on beating West Indies, says Shahid Afridi

Shahid Afridi, the skipper of the Pakistan cricket team, ahead of a crucial encounter against West Indies in the first quarterfinal of the ICC Cricket World Cup, has said that the entire focus of his team was there on to beating the rivals in tomorrow’s
game.

After beating the Australian squad in a thrilling Group-A match, Pakistan now tops the said group. And now, in order to proceed on to the way to the big trophy, the champions of the world cup 1992 will face West Indies at the Sher-e-Bangla stadium. If the
green shirts manage to outdo Sammy’s boys, they can expect to have a high-voltage semifinal against the traditional rivals from India, provided that the ‘Men in Blue’ beat their Australian guests in Ahmedabad on the following day.

Highlighting the importance of the match Afridi was going to have tomorrow, the skipper said in a pre-match press conference, “I am not even thinking of the next match, whether it is India or Australia. Our entire focus is on winning the quarter-final against
the West Indies.”

Well aware of the fact that failing to overcome the African rivals will only translate into taking a flight back to home; Afridi said that his team had resolved to carry on the momentum they had developed in the past few games.

Completely avoiding the sense of complacency, the bowling all-rounder claimed that he was not going to take West Indies lightly. He was of the view that provided with a display of good performance, any team could win on its day. They had no second chances
for the knock-out games and the rivals they are going to have an encounter with were rather good in their game.

Pakistan had been through tumultuous times just ahead of the World Cup cricket amid the spot-fixing allegations put by ‘News of the World’ newspaper, however, Shahid Afridi and his boys have not allowed their critics to get them distracted. By topping the
Group A, they have proved the fact that cricketing talent was not a rare commodity in their homeland and they still had the potential to outdo the sides as formidable as Australia.

While galloping onto the way to success, Afridi may have failed to impress his fans with the bat; however, the guy has been just impressive with the ball. Amid his effective leg-breaks, he is the leading bowler of the tournament for having 17 wickets already
in the bag.

Commending the role his bowlers have played for taking the team this far, Afridi said, “Our success so far has been entirely due to the bowlers, who have done a very good job. I myself have not batted well and will focus on that aspect on Wednesday. I know
how important my batting is for the team and I will try to get some runs on the board.”