Pakistan eye Super Eight

Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha on Friday said the team will try to shut out the off-field noise surrounding its planned boycott of the India match and instead focus on winning remaining group games to qualify for the T20 World Cup Super Eight stage. Pakistan, who won the title in 2009, are coming into the tournament in the wake of their decision to boycott the February 15 group game against arch-rivals India in solidarity with Bangladesh, who were replaced by Scotland after refusing to travel to India citing security concerns.

Asked how he would deal with the situation, Salman told reporters: “By just avoiding that. It’s something we, as a group, we don’t really talk about and we don’t really see what’s happening outside in the group. And I think that’s the best we can do. We can avoid all this and just focus on our game.” Since September last year, Indian cricket teams have adopted a no-handshake policy with Pakistan counterparts in international matches in solidarity with victims of the Pahalgam attack.

“We don’t really feel hurt or anything like that. But for the game it is not good. These things obviously should not happen,” Salman said. “Growing up as a kid, I’ve always seen people doing what was required for the game to be improved. We, to some extent, are role models. If you do that, then kids are going to pick up this and tomorrow, they are going to do the same things.

“So, I think these things should not happen. Because if you think of role models, I think role models don’t do this stuff.” Boycotting the match against India means Pakistan will lose the 2 points on offer and thus the former champions need to win their remaining three group games to enter the knock out stage.

Apart from the India, Pakistan also have the Netherlands, USA and Namibia in their group. Asked if there is any pressure on the team to win the first two matches, Salman said: “No, there is no pressure at all because whenever you come to an ICC tournament, you have to win almost all of your games. “And when we came here, we thought that we will win all the games and give our best. In the same way, we will try to give our best in the games that we play.”