da heads bet： Shahid Afridi felt the big plus from the matches so far was the united dressing room, unlike on some of Pakistan’s recent tours
Siddarth Ravindran in Dambulla20-Jun-2010
Shoaib Akhtar has made a satisfactory return to international cricket•Associated Press
For the second time in this Asia Cup, Pakistan went down after running theopposition close. Defeat against India eliminated them from the competition andstretched their losing streak to nine, just one short of their worst run,which came in 1987-88.Their captain, Shahid Afridi, remained optimistic that the team would soonturn the corner. Pakistan came into the competition after a fresh round ofchurning in their set-up, with recalls for hard-to-manage players likeShoaib Malik and Shoaib Akhtar. Afridi felt the big plus from the matchesso far was the united dressing room, unlike on some of Pakistan’s recenttours.”The state from which we are emerging, a new captain, some new players,keeping that in mind, this is a good improvement,” Afridi said after thematch, praising his players for their effort. “Hopefully the results willalso start to improve. Consistency is not there in our performance, weshowed a fighting spirit as a team, there was a unity on display, theseare good signs.”Another bonus for Pakistan was the fitness of Shoaib, who lookedless haggard than in the tournament opener, and delivered a testing spellto the Indian openers. Afridi felt Shoaib’s workload needed to becarefully monitored to extend his career. “Shoaib bowled well in the firstspell with the new ball,” he said. “I think he can prolong his career tillthe 2011 World Cup, because we are playing a lot of Test cricket beforethat and I’m not giving him a chance against every team; like the gameagainst Bangladesh day after tomorrow, he is resting.”Pakistan’s tried out yet another opening combination against India,bringing in Imran Farhat for youngster Shahzaib Hasan, to partnervice-captain Salman Butt. The pair saw off the new ball, adding 71 in theprocess, and with No. 3 Shoaib Malik picking off the singles with ease,Pakistan looked set for a bigger score than the 267 they ended up with.”The sort of start we got, we should have scored somewhere between 280 and290,”Afridi said. “But they bowled well, especially their fast bowlers.”Afridi explained the rationale for bringing back Farhat after giving Shahzaibonly one chance. “Early on it’s not easy to attack on this wicket, Shahzaibis an aggressive player and has to change his game a lot here. I thoughtFarhat is more of a straight-bat player who takes his time, so we wentwith him.”After the dead rubber against Bangladesh on Monday, Pakistan embark on ataxing assignment in England, where they have full series against the hostsand Australia. “There is some tough cricket coming up, we will be playingTest cricket after a while, the problems of the past are not thereanymore, and we are playing as a unit, let’s see how it goes.”