From rxpgnews.com
Batsmen's failure led to Pakistan's ouster: team manager
By IANS,
Apr 11, 2007 - 3:32:59 PM
Lahore, April 11 - Poor performance by batsmen led to Pakistan's debacle in the cricket World Cup, team manager Talat Ali has said.
'Our batsmen failed to set an imposing total against minnows Ireland besides failing to chase an achievable target too set by the West Indies,' Ali was quoted as saying by the Dawn Wednesday.
Ali recorded his statement before the World Cup's Performance Evaluation Committee - here Tuesday. Tauqir Zia, the former PCB chief, also recorded his statement.
Ali said had the batsmen shown their true potential, Pakistan would have been in the Super Eights stage.
He added that even the depleted bowling attack, in the absence of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, performed well.
Talat, however, neither endorsed nor fully rejected the finding of media manager Pervaiz Mir, who recently said that the players were more focused on religious activities than cricket in the West Indies.
'I would not like to comment on the religious activities but I will say that prayers have their own worth and cricket has its own,' he said.
The manager admitted that Pakistan's preparations for the World Cup were not ideal.
'We went to the West Indies with 13 players and among them Shahid Afridi was not available for the first two matches due to a ban, therefore, I think it was not an ideal situation for any team to prepare themselves for such a huge contest,' he said.
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